They could be anything, couldn’t they?
The possibility of cosmic life circles us like a comet,
leaves a trail of stardust we fall asleep beneath,
dreaming of creatures whose ship descends in our midst
like a ladder being lowered from the galactic attic.
They could be anything, couldn’t they?
We know this because we see what’s here—
long-necked, long-limbed spotted leaf-eaters,
underwater jelly dancers, nighttime light darters,
zipping sword beaks, round-tailed waterslappers.
Even wolves come in a thousand unlikely variants,
including ones we can carry with us like a yapping moon.
Energy shapes itself in startling ways— asserts itself—
is the recipe, the chef, and the waiting mouth.
What has it cooked up in other watery, windy worlds?
What life-forms are brewing, sloshing out of their primordial sea?
Are they primate-shaped, mammalian? Like us at all?
Or perhaps they are a new formulation, unrecognizable to us,
which treasures the atmosphere, the elements, the star-span
that cups the flame of their existence,
keeping it from blowing out.
—
Tabatha Yeatts is a poet, anthologist, blogger, and author. When Tabatha was ten years old, her first published poem appeared in Jack and Jill magazine. Since then she has written about everything from bat-loving zoologists to violin-loving physicists. Tabatha and her family live with two dogs and nearly a hundred plants in Maryland.
