What We Are

Keepsakes and heirlooms,
greeting cards and childhood toys,
a first kiss, the last goodbye ...

What we are
cannot be kept
like a locket on a chain
passing hand to hand
or heart to heart.

We grow
in the space
between stars
and in that crucible
we find our beginning
and our end,
our journey and
our destination.
We are fuel and fire,
flower and seed,
chicken and egg,
alpha and omega.
We are an endless
breathing of light
across dark waters,
causing stars
to ripple outward
until all circles are joined
into waves
as they meet the shore,
and we are those waves
that pound against stone
and we are the stones
that break the waves,
shaping the shoreline
with every breath,
shaped by what we breathe
and by that which
breathes through us.

Each of us an anvil
waiting for its hammer.