Did you know
the earth's multi-celled animals
the worms and beetles
fishes, lions, bears
all the planet's beasts
both large and small
ourslves of course included
are outweighed by bacteria
and their cousins
the even tinier archaea
thirty to one?

It seems to be the role
of science to remind us
just how little we humans weigh
in what we call
the greater scheme of things
how brief and recent our emergence
on the map
how infinitesimal our planet's place
in a universe of stars whose numbers
defy imagining

Yet in our bones we know
no separation
every distance is illusion
we are born from stars
our bodies made of stardust
we share in the dance
the pinwheel turnings
of a hundred billion galaxies
spinning within the web of space
that holds us all as one