Grounded

 

Where else to go? We are grounded on this 4 billion-year-old ball of dust and water.
Wander aimlessly through the abyss.
We are of the earth. Grounded? 
Life from the primordial ooze.
Molecule to molecule we grew.
Til we become human, and we die.

Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust. 

How many of us humans have ever lived on this ground?
Population Reference Bureau postulates 117 billion.  Who am I?
They say I am one of 117 billion.  When I was born, according to my becoming date,
I was the 2,946,752,787 person alive on Earth. 
Surely, nothing was expected of me. 

Grounded.  With this knowledge, we seek meaning.
We seek the truth of our existence. 
Who are we?  What are these thoughts? What is a thought?
What are these words?  Is poetry just a fancy, fleeting thought?

And yet, I still toil.  Each day the words of my culture come to my mind,
over coffee, over breakfast, over the sound of my love.
This token-chosen language.  I choose to communicate.
Successful or not, the words flow.  Truth, or gibberish? 
Does it matter?  To whom? To what?  To Toil? 

G r o u n d e d. Until the last breath of this life. 
Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust. 
To soil.

 

NOTES:
How many humans have ever lived?

Population Reference Bureau
117 billion members

No demographic data exist for more than 99% of the span of human existence. Still, with some assumptions about population size throughout human history, we can get a rough idea of this number: About 117 billion members of our species have ever been born on Earth.

On my birthday, at 1:08PM, I was the 2,946,752,787^th person alive on earth.

Day 13 ,
Prompt: Write a poem that is grounded in the body (earth). How you interpret that is up to you!

So, interpret, I did. I write in the dark of night's peace.

 

You and Me

They were both awkward when it came to the opposite sex. Yet, shyly they met. And then waited in each others thoughts and dreams.

A year later, he wondered. A query. She moved back east wanting a change. He wrote to her. She wrote back. A love story created on paper turned real when they met.  

Thirty-eight years later their hearts are inseparable.

My Wife, My Friend

My wife's friend came to visit.
She stayed a couple of days,
And as she said goodbye,
I saw my wife had some teary eyes. 

Longingly, I said to myself, 
I wish I had a friend like that,
And it occurred to me that I did...
      My wife. 

Something in the Sound of Rain

 

Something in the sound of rain
Something in its patter
Isolates a lonely man
Amidst the wildest chatter;
Surrounds a man under shelter
Keeps him in his place.
Something in the sound of rain
Makes you hide your face.

Everywhere you turn, it's there
There's no way to escape it
Yet with all its inconveniences
Who would want to forsake it?
It drives your soul within yourself
To look within your mind
And those who dislike the rain
Fear what they might find.