The Traveler

I'm excited to share my new poem here. I know it's a little nerdy to say the things I'm saying this way, and it's on the scientific and theological side. You just can't take the physicist out of the philosopher, and it's the best way I can convey my wonder at this new event in my life.

Nearing the end of my third decade
a new legacy, new magnum opus found me
So I decided on space travel

I'm building a capsule
complete with lifeline
Organic material, grounded and earthy
ignites this odyssey
It was at first a microscopic endeavor
a saline primordial sea -- the same soup
that broke in life upon this planet

My mission is not to discover life
but to invite it
Nothing less than a miracle, a lightning strike
an other, an infinite number of experiences and thoughts
an eternity of potential that I cannot own, nor will I try

And safely, under my skin, beneath this marked veil
my comfort capsule expands in space from minuscule detection
grows so large it will not be ignored
And faster than the speed of light,
as swift as thought, arriving from how far off
the space-traveler comes to this vessel
full and dark, with a flowing supply of oxygen
My song-sound is heard within
its soft, stretching walls

The messenger,
not so much of divinity elsewhere
but inside, fostering the ontology of all I am
without confinement or constraint:
I am Infinite. I am the Universe.

Inside cells divide
each knowing its work
Within the membrane
organelles dance with DNA and RNA
the ribosomal protein play
extending in atoms, electrons, quarks
Photons dance like stars
in the spinning sea of space