Genetically Predisposed to Glory

Diamonds used to be coal—
look it up—
there were plants curved over dinosaurs
before anyone dreamed of gold.
Fish are ferns singing of amoebas
who remember heat
and the cracking of the earth,
when oxygen burned instead of breathed.

And deep inside you,
where even the alligator and the shark have sunk
into the mists of a boiling sea,
there are atoms who jumped
from an explosion of light and sound.
The phosphate and carbon that saw the stars
inhabit your DNA
and dance in your brain;
your skin drinks the sun, and is it.

You are a galaxy that lives and breathes and yearns.
There is a universe swimming in your genes.