Are we forever;
stored in the organized flow
of synaptic juices?
Or forever in the ripples and waves
we send across the ocean of human events?
Are we forever in the reaching strands -
genetic threads binding us across the generations?
Are we forever in the scattering of our atoms
into the infinite all & everything?
Are we forever in what we have consumed, removed, and deleted -
in the things we did not change,
in what we refrained from -
did not affect,
and thereby affected?

We touch time, we change time
We occupy, in this incorporation of physical being,
a trillion times more space
than did the entire universe
in the instants before ex/implosion.
When a galaxy is only one in a trillion others,
is it then a thing any greater than us -
be it then though,
the entire universe?
If 'Galaxy' is a name for a single thing,
yet it is composed of a hundred billion worlds,
made from a hundred billion worlds;
can it really be a singular entity;
or is 'Galaxy' a name for a disparate conglomeration?
Then, why would the name 'Universe' be anything
but another,
larger
name for 'Galaxy'?
If we are just as much a collection of disparate elements
all made of the same stuff,
- all ultimately fabrications
from protons, gluons, quarks, magnetism, radiation,
extractions of the equation:
sum=(matter,time,energy,space)infinity,
is 'Humanity',
or even 'Human'
just a smaller name for
'Universe'?
How can we be insignificant
when we are so much larger
than that unborn universe
and how can we be vainglorious
when we are so close to being nothing?
A mote of dust is a cosmos,
and the Ultimate Everything is a mote of dust.
 all is equal, except the 'all'

Living, locomoting, perceiving, reacting, assimilating,
transmuting, reproducing, disintegrating -
Whatever animates us, we know as 'Spirit'
 and Spirit's source we oft call 'God'
 Animation is energy.
 Energy changes -
never ceases.
We are,
and
we think,
but are not what we think we are...

Perception;
information captured by receptors
and storage of sensory impressions
filtered through the sieve of emotion
becomes cognition.
From behind the lenses that focus light
into my brain,
 the auditory, olfactory, and tactile sensors,
I store the images
that register as neural data
trapped in cells,
biochemical, micro-electrical triggers
of axons and dendrites,
and synaptic soups of varying flavors
I interpret them according to all the impressions
and information I have gathered
up to that point
and how it has affected me as an individual,
trying to survive as long as possible
  - a few extra instants
on the clock of forever.

From whatever position in space I occupy,
I take in ambient waves of vibratory energy,
and whatever molecules are adrift nearby.
And from that position
- my space which cannot otherwise be occupied -
I name my awareness:
Self
Emotional & genetic glue pastes me to others,
that we may stay like drops of saltwater
that merge into a shore-less sea.
Why does insatiable 'self' crave infinity?
Can we, once aware,
not conceive of unawareness?
Are Self and Ego
same?
I am not the first to ask.
I will not be the one who answers

I do know
that everything which has ever happened,
is still happening somewhere
Depending on your place
in space & time.
The proof is in the telescope.
Does this satisfy
irrelevant ego?
Like the sunglasses perched
smugly on your forehead
Like the keys nestled
in the pocket of your coat
accessible and waiting for you
to just stop looking;
We search, frantically,
for that which is
everywhere
obscured only by
the gloaming cloud of ego
Like the head of a pin,
held against a spotlight
ego casts a shadow big enough to blot the sun
and when it is taken out of the light
all is revealed.

We are waves and ripples
We are the generations,
We are the helical torch,
passed along in the marathon
We are all that we touch
and all that we leave alone
We are of everything,
everywhere -
spawn of the Supreme Reality
We are memories,
living in each others' cells
 We are animated,
energetic spirits
 - particles
in the boundless body of God
We are
of, and for
...ever