The Cradle

I am rocked like a toddler in the cradle of Non-Being, 
watching Probability wave above my head, a patient parent,
waiting for it to collapse of exhaustion.

Indecision is a teething toy for tiny mouths,
but I am a woman now. My limbs drag the Ground of Being,
making ripples in spacetime not of my choosing.

It's time to dance and let the spooky action of living 
mirror my movement out into the multiverse, connecting
consciousness to creation, deliberation to decoherence—

So that when the stardust of flesh crumbles earthward,
And these glittering particles are gifted to another,
I have changed, of my own volition, some thing.

Credit: ESA/PACS/SPIRE/Martin Hennemann & Frédérique Motte, Laboratoire AIM Paris-Saclay,
CEA/Irfu – CNRS/INSU – Univ. Paris Diderot, France

C.S. MacCath's poetry has been nominated twice for the Rhysling Award, and her fiction has received honorable mention in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Scheherazade's Facade, Clockwork Phoenix: Tales of Beauty and Strangeness, Murky Depths, Goblin Fruit and other publications. At present, she's working on a science fiction series entitled Petals of the Twenty Thousand Blossom and a collection of speculative fiction and poetry. 

Ceallaigh is a vegan, animal rights activist and Linux geek who owns and manages the Triskele Media web development company. She lives in Nova Scotia with her husband, where they're both passionate Gàidhlig language learners and members of the local Gàidhlig community. You can find her online at csmaccath.com.