What are we made of?

photo by Michael Halloran

the stuff of stars
the elements of the periodic table
concocted of chemicals that explode,
ions that interact,
molecules that relate.

We are the stuff of life.
No more, no less
and yet.

Yet,
we think, and move
and have our being.

Somehow we animated,
went from sketch to living color.
Our chemistry became biology,
we moved from dead in our tracks
to alive and well.

Well, not so well.

Our chemistry is faulty, we say,
prone to pesticides and processed to pieces.
Our environment does us in, we say,
nothing to be done about the ways of the world.
Our bodies betray us, we say,
resenting the long hours and little pay.

Who would fault us for losing hope in them?

Except,
the One who made us,
who imagined our being.

The chemist who
connected our elements,
shaped our molecules,
formulated our reactions,
exploded our contents.

This One,
the only one present when
our chemistry became our biology.

When we came to life.