We'Re All Now Used To Thinking Poem by Patti Masterman

We're all now used to thinking that we've been set apart
Entirely as ourselves; that none other like us breathes:
That to be a sovereign self, is like any other art;
And our living shell is only by our own soul sheathed.

But things are seldom simple, precise as you've been taught
In school; things alive must share a common linkage, true:
On the substance they depend; and scientists have sought
To show the widely held and most palatable view:

Little macroscopic worlds there would orbit on their own
And scarcely would disturb their close neighbor's solo path.
Each set of lungs; each entity is surely grown alone-
And to say they are dependent is to risk our nature's wrath.

But above there is a firmament of air and water, too
This air moves as a whole, and it fills it sea to sea:
Breathe in, and some fragment of my soul goes into you;
Breathe out, and a little bit of you comes into me.