Fallen Through the Atmosphere

Your particle receptors, green islands
silhouetted in white, scleral seas,
watch the world spin around a sun,
through a universe, passed centuries
of dust. Comets have crumbled,
fallen through the atmosphere,
cosmic and dry, cold from fumbling
through space alone. What’s left behind,
has landed in your bones, your hair,
and you inhale deep into your lungs
where it warms up, becomes part
of your breathing, turns to something
more than lonely stardust
shot through the void with no real direction.
When I die, my body will break down,
sink into itself, carbon and nitrogen.
Insects will pick at my flesh. Bacteria
will nibble my bones clean. What makes it
to soil will feed grass, find its way up
into the air, and with any luck,
you’ll be standing over my grave,
the lids of your particle receptors
closed, lungs inhaling, keeping me warm.

Rodger LeGrand