Life is a plan B,

perhaps something to fall back on,

or something to resign oneself to;

a scratch in the record,

a leftover set piece from a turkey film,

or a bardo caused by bad karma;

something to get through,

get away from, break free of

Or is it a stage to be staged upon;

a moment with infinite prefixes

and eternal implications;

a watchtower higher than heaven;

a fusion-powered journey between the stars;

an inexhaustible stroke of luck in misfortune;

a creativity-starved tabula rasa;

a calm in seasoned years,

a godless religion in the realms of entrails;

an exciting day-by-day

interleaved with star-bright nights;

diaries in DNA code and invisible ink

out here

in the aftermath of 13.8 billion years of evolution;

Big Bang still roaring

in love of every kind;

in faces glowing in sleep

and names never forgotten;

the cup of coffee smoothly balanced

and painlessly quick-stepped

up the semi-spiral of the wooden stairs,

toward paper and pen and this poem;

the house bathed in the morning sun of Northbothnia