Before the big bang, there was something…
Bodies, molecules touching, who or what
created them we do not know but are
free to name, dream and tell.
To understand creation, one must try to
understand him or herself. What makes you
tick, revolve, move, gravitate, love, burn
with anger, repulse, reject, accept?
That’s the spunk of life—the calm becoming
storm, mountains from molehills fight.
Call it God, the remover to remove, the
Wind today from Earth’s first blast.
Moving, silent, loud, crashing and falling,
supported by each other, the elements in
us like Lao Tzu said, there is no separation!
The mist in us, fog and rocks stray parts—
What is in your heart? I call it the spunk
of life, the garnered fire and energy needed
to rise, penetrating what we can to express
some inner thanks at dance’s invitation.
Here one moment, a flash of idea and spirit
the next, we call it names like “God” or
good orderly direction, because we want
someone to whom to address our gift.
Imagine the false beginning that never was,
and a scientist tearing out her hair trying
to prove something. The only certainty is
not explained in words. Things are.
Why are they? And, again, who or what first
put them there? We did, of course, the people
and beings that name things, we of the same
stuff that was here at the start—
I wasn’t fully there, I’ll admit, so guess at patterns
in the sky and mind that tell me birth is as
birth was, an explosion, a rubbing and exciting
of parts creating heat and light…
The spunk of life.
Bill Watkins, Traveling Poet 