On A Rock Poem by Diane Furtney

Something happened on a low,
rounded rock in a galaxy that tows

and pushes in the Local Group—-something
obstreperous, alert, agile, having

the odd, beautiful awkwardness of youth,
made of flyaway matter from deaths

preceding it, now self-sculpting, organized
in open format, feelingly mental, resized,

with a will to swing, hand over hand,
from this near-Orion branch

to treelike limbs in the Perseus
and Cygnus. And the princess,

locked in the cosmos
in the sleep of matter, whose

long and secret name might
include truth, deep, bright,

and something else, stirs
in that sleep—-just slightly stirs,

afloat in the black lake,
but, if we live, will wake.

In SCIENCE AND, FutureCycle Press, Copyright © 2014 Diane Furtney