INFINITE EVE

I. 
One birth spawned a billion
like one star in a net of pearls 
around a galaxy’s dark throat,
spinning in limitless expansion,
and this, only one manifestation of the multiverse,
our universe a newly spawned bubble 
in an infinite vibrating string. 

II. 
Eve grounds us as myth, as reality, 
mother of the clay jar, poetry, war.
She is the long birthing scream
that echoes in the vastness between stars
and is answered by mothers 
on other worlds.

III.
Only Eve pins the dark in time,
even as it slips into momentlessness
where you say you want to live.
The universe is a lung, 
expanding as we breathe out
our loneliness.
                        

whorls of galaxies so bright  
block the darkness beyond,
the darkness so far from us
its light hasn’t yet reached us,
as if we were some kind of destination,
something important, central,
like the Port Authority 
or LAX.

Because why wouldn’t we be important?
God came to us after all,
died for us, supposedly,
on this little speck of blue dust
in the vast heavenly warehouse of stars and planets.
It couldn’t be that we are only a corner 
the janitor missed with his broom.
                        

The air has suddenly stilled,
unswirled by truck tires
or helicopter rotors.
In that voiceless space,
bird song is newly audible:
variable thrush melodies,
sharp jay scratch,
quick sparrow cheep.

But what I first notice is absence:
emptiness between leaves,
moments between songs,
spaces where my father used to laugh
and does no longer.