The micrometeorite
Appears roughly spherical,
Somewhere between cratered moon
And rolled-up elephant dung.
It came from cathedral dust
Scooped from Canterbury’s roof.
You could almost imagine
A dung-beetle alien
Climbing out and rolling it
Through the pollen and ashes,
Its life support and spaceship.
Your world is covered in these
Interplanetary specks
Always falling from the sky
Like Biblical angels, like
Philip Pullman’s magic dust,
Like but not. Some’s on you now,
On your eyelashes, your skin,
Or embedded in your clothes.
This is how events happen,
How great change accumulates
Potential in increments.
Some claim life on Earth began
With organic molecules
Seeded by meteor dust.
Hey, that’s you! You’re life on Earth,
Aren’t you? Of course, you’re human,
Likely, if you’re reading this,
Or machine intelligence,
And might have more important
Issues to worry about
Than being merely alive.
The alien dung beetle
Doesn’t mind. It rolls its rough,
Near-indestructible sphere,
Into some crevasse of you
For safe keeping, then settles
Itself to send its reports.
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