We Are

The clouds in the blue marble
Photograph from Apollo
Remain caught in one pattern

In one of the most widely
Distributed photographs
Ever taken. We can’t say

Ever taken on Earth, since
It wasn’t. Of Earth, not on.
So there it is, Africa,

The mother continent, scene
Of human evolution
Seen from just far enough off

To frame it in its planet,
Along with Antarctica
And Saudi Arabia,

And that one, momentary
Pattern of clouds in sunlight
Caught fifty orbits ago

On film, then printed in inks
And repeated, repeated,
On paper, on glass, in skulls

That never can remember
What that pattern of clouds was
Even when they remember

Which continents were pictured.
Mostly skulls remember words.
Words are the clouds of skulls’ selves.