Saturday 6 February 2010

You are not the stuff of which you are made.

Every atom that was
ever present
in your
seven-year-old self
is no longer inside you;

matter flows,
plants grow:
waste is shed
into plant bed.

'That was me,' you say
as you look at an
image of
your child self.

That was never you
and never again will
a child
bear those same atoms.

You are merely
an embellished version
of an earlier 
flavour of you,

containing different atoms;
and a different-structured brain
that changes every minute -
yet you're much like everyone else.

The universe is
more queer
than one might ever imagine,
and it's 
beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you - I stole it from a TED Richard Dawkins lecture (which you can find on my other blog). I'd recommend reading Unweaving the Rainbow - by Richard Dawkins.

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