Once,
In the middle of nowhere
There hid a
Tiny speck of dust
Smaller than
The smallest microbe.
With all the playful energy
The miniscule pinprick contained,
It couldn’t wait
A single moment longer
To meet the world
And make new friends.
So
The tiny speck of dust
Exploded,
Launching a shower
Of vibrant reds,
Oranges,
And yellows
Into the swirl of gloom above.
And that was how
The universe began.
Glamorous stars
Blinked at each other
In the inky night sky.
Bits of cast off rock,
Large and small,
Sped around the stars
Like race cars.
More and more rocks joined;
The racetrack became too packed
And the charging rocks collided
Until gradually,
Planet Earth
Emerged from the chaos.
Back then,
Our home planet
Was a totally different world.
Infuriated asteroids and meteorites
Crashed into the
Simmering surface.
But planet Earth
Tired of its intense workout,
Finally settled down,
Falling into rhythm
Around the sizzling sun.
All of a sudden,
A stray ball of rock
Came hurling through outer space,
A furious untamed lion
Ready to devour all in its path.
But our newborn planet
Fought back,
Cracking the foreigner into pieces,
Sending a spurt
Of dusty stone
Into the air.
But the fight was not over yet--
Some of the stone
Was squashed into a ball,
Forming our
Now dearest companion,
The moon.
Sights of life
Finally appeared on Earth.
Molecules linked together,
And as more joined,
Began to make
Replicas of themselves.
Membranes formed
Around these molecules
By fatty by-products.
And humans finally made
Their first appearance
As invisible
Single-celled organisms.
This,
Reader,
Is how our dazzling universe,
Full of all its stunning wonders,
Came to be.
Houston, TX
