Cipher

The mother the daughter and the

What is that empty space? We need to fill it. Fill it up with explanations that amaze our self-regard. Here are compound eyes flecked with the dust of stars made by

Matter is a pickle, or is this pickle omnipotent, like energy, like the predestined, the chosen by

What is that fucking empty space? Us.

Nothing sacred here but us, but you and me and our tribe. Oh?

But, the elements. All of the dragonflies, all of their ancestors too, 300 million years ago, when their wings spanned two feet. As it was before, so it will never be again.

Shall we implode and sink? Melt our own wings, this time? (Because we are well-equipped.) To become a microscopic, sedimentary layer that will escape notice three million years hence?

Beyond the horizon, a hawk flies on recycled pinions. Raptor flight plan: no love, no hate, no war, just rapture. Where is the myopia of our species located? Maybe before I die, I will locate the exact spot, the elusive reptile, the part that struggles with the responsibility of being hitched to a pre-frontal cortex.

One thing I know for sure, a juvenile bet on divine intervention is the optimal losing hand. An ornamental bootstrap we created to comfort ourselves. To explain our existence and supremacy in the natural world. Oh my, the stories we made! At that stubborn, insistent junction with hegemony, it all goes bad.

Without long-term vision, we are as blind as bats without sonar. Might as well head back to the stone age right now. If we can survive the journey. When the threads unravel, we will not have time for repairs. Rumination is for ruminants. Going once, going twice…

The dissolving edges of a butterfly’s wings. She flies on according to her instinct, until the final grounding.

Sherrie Felton © 2020