Threads

My mind is on a loom—

Slowly stretched by  innumerable fingers.

Moving from minute chaos to a grand design

Whose pattern is beyond my grasp.

Many contributing ideas, plans, people,

Threads sourced from slow-growing proteins

From some animal in the Andes—

Through sea, and slop, and snow

Made its way to be jumbled in my lap

On a porch in Oregon—neatly dyed and repurposed.

Ready to be infused with my ‘individuality.’

I label these threads as my own

But I wasn’t on the mountain

Watching over the herd, smoke piling

Out of my mouth and off the hills.

As morning dew evaporates,

Hosts munch a photosynthetic routine

Marching and growing another day—

Completing processes determined

By millennia of biological wiring.

The alpaca feels purpose.

The shepherd feels purpose.

And where do I find mine?

My threads are energy borrowed

From the sun and evolution and privilege.

This design is simply light reflecting off matter,

Bouncing back on my neat retinas

Infused with meaning by cortices—

A bubbling miasma of chemistry and coincidence.

This is my existence—Biology has designed me

With a illusory sense of purpose

To keep busy on the loom.