WHY WE ARE HERE

Lisa St John

Why can't we wonder about what ...

is?

Is it too close to us, this magnificent reality of existence? 

We focus on the destiny of starlight, the dank history of gravity. We invite wars

to decide who deserves to live and whose sacred text to read.

We debate whether or not robots and clones and AIs are human; we string together "what ifs" like a necklace or

a noose.

We write books (and then read them) about our purpose in life, our destiny; our inner dialogue with free will chatters on for decades and 

is it not-

is it not enough 

to know that the first sound every human being hears is the orchestra of the womb? 

The mother's beating heart, air moving in and out of her lungs, even the sound of her blood moving through the umbilical cord. 

Is it not enough 

of a miracle that every human being shares 99% of their DNA with 

every

other

human being?

We can transfer a living human heart from one body to the next; we can print a heart from a machine. But we don't know

why we laugh, or why cats purr.

We know that black holes can swallow entire stars—that the Magnus Effect makes balls fly instead of fall.

Why not wonder why the gray of a rainy autumn afternoon is different that the gray of a snowstorm?

We don't stop 

in astonishment at the ray of sunlight caressing a child's face, or the graceful power of hummingbird flight.

We want a reason for our objective reality,

and then we want to argue about it.

And all the while there is the tender blue of morning and the raging violets of evening and the scars of our individual little lives all

waiting, waiting for us to see.

•••
Lisa St. John is a retired English Teacher and published poet. Her chapbook, Ponderings, is available on her website at lisachristinastjohn.com. She lives in the beautiful Hudson Valley of upstate New York where she calls the Catskill Mountains home. Lisa has published her poetry in journals such as, The Poet’s Billow, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Albany Poets, Light, Entropy Magazine, The Poetry Distillery, Poets Reading the News, and Chronogram Magazine. Her poems have won awards such as The Bermuda Triangle Contest. The excerpt, “I Still Exist,” from her working memoir, was published by Grief Digest Magazine. 

Why We Are Here originally published in Eyedrum Periodically, Issue 17.