Space Traveler

  by Alisa

This is a poem I wrote in my first trimester, and in preparing for the birth of my son, I enjoyed returning to these expressions of my magnificat. After many years of marriage, including many where I seriously questioned whether or not I wanted or would have children, I found myself waking early each morning in excitement of the new life growing inside of me. I know that birth is incredibly common, yet to me it seems incredibly miraculous at the same time.

Where does this new consciousness come from? If we believe literally in Kolob, how fast would a spirit have to travel to arrive on time? How interesting the process of growth, of cell division, of expansion. How amazing it is to be the observer of new life, up close. To feel like a part of the Creator in the process.

The Traveler

Nearing the end of my third decade
a new legacy, new magnum opus found me
So I decided on space travel

I’m building a capsule
complete with lifeline
Organic material, grounded and earthy
ignites this odyssey

It was at first a microscopic endeavor
a saline primordial sea — the same soup
that broke in life upon this planet

My mission is not to discover life but to invite it
Nothing less than a miracle, a lightning strike
an other, an infinite number of experiences and thoughts
an eternity of potential that I cannot own, nor will I try

And safely, under my skin, beneath this marked veil
my comfort capsule expands in space
from minuscule detection,
grows so large it will not be ignored

And faster than the speed of light,
as swift as thought, arriving from how far off
the space-traveler comes to this vessel full and dark,
with a flowing supply of oxygen
My song-sound is heard within its soft, stretching walls

The messenger, not so much of divinity elsewhere but inside,
fostering the ontology of all I am
without confinement or constraint:
I am Infinite. I am the Universe.

Inside cells divide, each knowing its work
Within the membrane organelles dance with DNA and RNA
the ribosomal protein play
extending in atoms, electrons, quarks
Photons dance like stars in the spinning sea of space