The Unchosen Life

Life, an unchosen offering,
a spark we did not strike,
dropped into a world
we did not choose,
carried forward by time.

We wake inside a story already begun,
learning to speak lines we never chose.
But the fire is ours now.
We decide how it burns.

Telomeres shorten. Cells falter.
Life moves toward its end.

Beyond us, gravity gathers,
stars burn and fade,
worlds form and dissolve.

The universe does not know
love from hatred,
tragedy from triumph,
birth from death.

We do.
We name the changes.
We tell stories.
We create meaning.

And something strange appears:
a universe within the universe,
where matter becomes experience,
collision becomes tragedy,
loss becomes grief,
life becomes story.

A dandelion faces the storm.
The storm is immense.
The dandelion is fragile.
The storm does not know
the dandelion is there.

The wind bends its stem,
scatters its seeds.

What is the use?

The storm does not answer.
The dandelion asks anyway.

And in the asking,
the storm is no longer
only wind and water.

It becomes
fear,
struggle,
survival.
It becomes a drama.

Perhaps this is what remains:
not the beginning,
not the storm,
not the answer,
but the asking.

And what we make
of being here.