In the beginning was the word, and the word was BOOM.
BOOM exploding out from nothing, from the tiniest point
And even in those early moments the wild particles colliding,
Combining to form elements, molecules, scattering wide in the blank empty script
Of possibility. On they went, making compounds, slowly pulling towards one another in disks of
Spinning gravity, tightening, tightening until
BOOM again: a star turning rotating part of a thousand a million a billion a galaxy BOOM
The molecules pouring out, heavy and pregnant until
Grinding to lava glow the rough spheres, the gravid disks collapse to make worlds BOOM
The comets pounding down with water, with carbon
And all this time, beloved
We knew nothing. Nothing.
Thirteen point seven billion years of nothing.
And then at last there came a time when
The fateful worm of Life demanding it, though improbable, you were made.
You were born.
And slowly—so slowly—the awareness of being a Self, being One Apart came
Into you, and me, and all of us. We are ourselves, in this eyeblink of time, laughing
And crying and striving. After thirteen point seven billion years of nothing.
There will come a day.
Soon, sad to say. Sooner than most of us want
Will come the moments when, after parties and funerals, and so much festivity
We will go to nothing again.
We will return to the state we knew before the little knot of flesh began to beat
To become us.
We will disappear to the state we knew during those thirteen point seven
Billion years.
Death is just that.
That’s all.
Don’t be afraid.
