Little Things

Atlas

Like many,
I love to look at the stars.
I love the fact that ours
Is just one among many.
What i love about astronomy,
Is that our constellations
Tell a story;
We were born from mythology.
Mythology,
Was our first attempt to understand the world
In which we live.
We put a god in everything
And those gods gave us our reasons;
Why is the sky blue?
Who chose blue?
The gods.
Why do men have nipples?
It's the will of the gods.
why does this wine taste so good?
There's a god in it! *hiccup!
And for awhile ,
There wasn't a single thing the gods couldn't explain.
We believed that their anger gave us lightning.
Their despair gave us rain.
We whispered unto them our desires
Believing that their gracious charity could save us.

But those gods were just stories.
But those stories,
Became a huge part of how we learn.
They burn lessons into.our memories
They became a huge part of how we remember
and we remember
Down to that first unbearable
Bee sting.
And we learn
That this tiny blue marble we call the world,
Has rules.
Rule number one:
Dont fuck with the bees!
An unforgettable lesson
Bought to you by
your memories.

I remember.that i grew up.loving mythology.
I remember the story of the titan
Atlas,
Who we the god of astronomy;
The original global positioning system
Sending sailors safely home,
By telling.them with constellations
to keep watching.
He taught us about the stars.
He did all of this,
While.holding up ours.
Our pale blue dot.
But Atlas,
is caught between two different tellings of his story:
In the first version,
he leads a rebellion against Olympus,
And then is sentenced
tools the heavens.upon his shoulders
For all eternity.
In the second.story,
He is chosen to
become the guardian of the pillars
The hold up.the sky.
I prefer.the second story.
It means that the world is not a a punishment,
Bit rather a responsibility.
Yet how can just one
be charged with such a burden?
How can just one
Be responsible for all of this?
When i think of Atlas,
I think of a single stop of rain.
I think of how unfair it would be

To hold a single drop soley responsible
For making the whole entire world
clean again.
I

remember a story of someone who was trying to explain the world to me-

She said the ground and the sky,           They love each other,                 But they don't have arms          So rain is how they hold one another.
But i wondered about us;
In this perfect design,
Where do we fit in?
Which piece if the puzzle are we?
Like constellations
I began to see the connection between dots.
I numbered my thoughts
And drew lines from one to the next.
I began to see us in the context.of a bigger picture;
Shappening the blur slowly into focus.
We are Atlas.
I saw that this pale blue dot,
This one world,
Is all we got.
There will be no reset button.
No new operating system,
Or downloadable upgrade.
We will not be able to trade in our world fir a brand new one,
With climate control,
Or better fuel efficiency,
We get one shot at this.
Dismiss all reports of second chances-
We get one .
And yet we draw advances on our future
As if we wont one day be her accountable.
We will.
We are.
The human race runs toward  finish line
In wonders,
Will we ever cross it?
Have we already?
We are faced
with a seemingly impossible task,
And its okay to be afraid.
Our dilema stands before us
Like a mountain
Carved into a blockade
With the sheer magnitude of our problems,
Would be enough to disuade anyone.

How do we save the world?
We lay in our beds
Curled into question marks, wondering
What can we do?
Where can we start?
Is hope a glue crazy enough
To hold us together
While were falling apart?
The burden seems immense,
But we can do this.
We must the te martial its approach
To loving our planet;
Love as self defense,
Forget about the rest.
There will be no other thing worth saving as this.
Nothing more important.
Noting more precious.
This is home.
All of our stories start and end here.
We are sheltered within an atmosphere
Which has given us
every breath we will ever take.
Every moment we will ever make,
Has come the flesh of our planet;
Skin like soil,
Water like blood,
Bone like granite.
It is not a myth.
This is not a debate.
Facts are in. Fact is,
There has never been any question.
We are facing crisis.
We dismiss the truth,
Not because we cant accept it,
But because having to commit ourselves to change is a scary prospect.for anybody.
The most alarming part
About the statement
We are facing crises,
Is not the word crises,
But the word we.
Because these two letters
Take responsibility away from one,
And rests it squarely on the shoulders
Of everyone.
We are Atlas now.
But our strength will come
From finding a way to share in shouldering the responsibility
Of turning the impossible,
Into somehow.
Somehow we will do this.
We can dismiss apathy,
We can reject uncertainty.
We can be the new chapter in our story.
We will not see change immediately.
We must act in Faith.
As the hour hand
Grips the minute hand
And they land on the eleventh hour,
We must believe like the seed;
That change is possible.
The seed never sees the flower.
It grows, knowing that
It must become more than it was.
It changes,
Because in growth,
All of its potential can be unlocked.
Change is like rain;
It starts with a single drop.
Just one.
Like our pale blue dot,
Caught in an endless waltz
Called gravity,
We circle the sun
Wondering who, if anyone,
Left the light on.
We are constellations drawn upon the earth.
We are connected to one another.
We are bound.
We must behave as the arms
That connect the ground to the sky,
We must try to be more like the rain;
Our stories may differ,
Our goal is the same.
How do we save our pale blue dot?
We act as the rain,
Realizing that each individual drop,
Is as equal and important as any.
We act as one,
Now we are many.