John Stetson Poet Free verse

In Some, It's Greater

The typical human cell is made of a hundred trillion atoms, give or take
Every second things conjoin, repel, attract, and then break
Exchanging hundreds, of millions, of molecules by the clock
Between membranes where thousands of genes lock and unlock

Ribosomes and organelles all go to work
Electricity rising and surging and falling
Generations of generators, a quanta of quirk
Make motors which turn, pumps that churn, calories burn
All happening in just one of your cells, by the way
Joining 100 times more than the stars which make "our" Milky Way

We contain a mere 60 elements out of 132
Less than half the potential make up me and you
70 octillion atoms whizzing about
Comprise electrons, protons, and neutrons on and on, in or out
Which team with quarks and gluons and other invisible (so far) things
In miraculous non-mechanical soup, a weight with no springs
All energized in waves that are rippling in space
Making up 99% of what sends you to this place

And when we come to what we all know as rest
All those things are still up and doing their best
To keep us from heading to that final place
Where resting is supposed to be that state of grace

But even when our walking and talking and thinking is done
The stuff of our stuff goes right back to where it's begun

All is one, one for all, all for nothing in some
Makes the some of what's coming and summing us all

(Numbers and research sourced from "What's Gotten Into You", Dan Levitt, HarperCollins, 2023)

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