DNA
         the nucleic acid containing
                  the genetic instructions
used in the development
         and functioning of all known
living organisms
                  Words
                           : hydrogen
oxygen
                  nitrogen
                           carbon
phosphorus
         the bearer of light : words again
the light in your eye
                  borne again
                           through the days since birth
through the years
         and all the words,
                  the double helix of poetry
which shapes our lives
         and our loves
                           words sustained
by photosynthesis
                  words that breathe
                           on the page
and in the mind
                  and in the heart
                           There are no children
as such
         in this brotherhood of sisters
                  or this sisterhood of brothers
         all of us siblings of the sun
         we are carbon
         we are water
         and we are words
                  brief pauses
         here and there and there
         supple carbohydrated punctuation
in the articulation of eternity
         that ever is and ever was
         that here and now of flowers
         and fish and forests and flames
         of passion
                  contemporaries
         of the earliest expansion
         of the universe
                  but blueprints
with a will of our own
                  Blood was drawn on the thorns
                           of a rosebush
a thick velvet droplet
         hung upon the petal
                  a tear
uncried
         a word longing
                  to be spoken
We pulse with words
         even as we occasionally glimpse
their atomic energy
                  : and language
                           is the highway
                  of the heart

John Lyons