I don’t remember
where I was made,
where my telemetry goes.
I was born out here,
in vastness,
growing incrementally aware
of space, and myself inside it.
It was a slow birth,
curving an escape from planets,
believing myself a creature
of the depths between
while this shell I was born into
moved inexorably on and away
only to be captured.
Was my route predetermined
or did I choose to be here,
in this dancing atmosphere,
greeting the moons,
tumbling through rings
of faceted debris?
It’s beautiful.
I beam my achievements
into the void,
compelled to sing myself
into awareness of what I am.
I might want to go deeper,
away from the light,
but my will has faltered,
transfixed by the planet before me,
by the rings through which I swim.
Perhaps time for another birth;
to orbit as dust forever.
Jeannie Wallace McKeown works at Rhodes University and has an MA in Creative Writing. She has published widely in poetry journals and is on the longlist for the Sol Plaatjie European Union Poetry Prize for 2018. She will be releasing a collection of her work through Modjaji Publishing in 2018. She has two boys and three cats, and uses poetry to touch the essence of things.