are we not what we are

The deities do not really know
me, nor I them.
I understand not their reasoning.
I do not bow down
to their invisible forces.
My days do not depend on
meeting their needs–
they do not guide me
or light my path.

Chance made me,
chance and circumstances
beyond their control.

I do not look like them,
nor do I follow
their arbitrary whims.
Who I am is a mystery–
mine, not theirs.
When I cease to be
I will become
part of the mystery too.

I will not join them
or serve them
or sing their praises.

I will sing the songs
of my people speaking
in the voices
of the ebb and flow
of our existence,
our beginnings and our ends.

The universe will continue
with or without me, or us,
or those calculations some may choose
to rest their hopes upon.

Sorrow will someday
fill me, like waters burning
inside a vast light–
I will lie naked and alone,
bones joined
to the many paths
my feet have trodden.

And yet joy
and yet laughter
and yet wonder
and the magic of the night sky.
And yet the wings of birds
and the shells
that come from the sea.

We are all this
and more,
already rooted and found.
We belong to what nurtures life–
the earth, the moon, the sun–
the elemental dust
given us by the stars.

A (late) response to the Myths of the Mirror May Speculative Fiction prompt, below.  I kind of went off on a tangent with both the collage and words, but I started with Diana’s image.