in all our solar system
this thin shell of weather
is all there is for us:
an aura of viability,
a halo of life,
its breezes our breath,
storms our cleansing.
it surrounds our ‘pale blue dot’
(as seen from Saturn,
so minute in the vast
vacuum of space)
not as an eggshell which cracks to birth,
but as a wisp of air without a second,
once violated, lost or poisoned
desolate like Mars
deadly like Venus,
and as a corona: a breathing,
spherical, sustaining raiment:
a crown for life
as we know it.
