Moss Piglets in Space

Strange little things, as all things are,
Strange and little, even the world,
Even the stars. Our universe itself

Is strange, at least to us, strangely
Unsocial, uncommunicative, fond
Of mathematics, apparently, but otherwise

Barely knowable, huge, capacious,
Mostly empty, mostly dark, deep grooved
In little ways, as if kept balanced on a blade

Between not having been anything, ever,
And being the only other way, constrained
Exactly as we know it, exactly as it has been,

One little thing away from not being,
Leading some of us to think everything
In this one universe is just one little thing

Among countless, immeasurable,
Literally unfathomable other kinds
Of cosmos, perhaps even some fathomed

As where moss piglets meet water bears
Swimming through seas of, to us,
Magical infinity, greeting each other

Leisurely, their shapes determined more
As are our vocabularies and etymologies
Than as our biology, determined,

That is, as whimsy was, by whimsy,
Their sea moss a forest unto itself, forever
Available to floating little piglets who never

Grow larger in those green oceans filled
Variously with blissfully snorkeling bears
Who never attack a thing, so sociable

And without envy. It's a strange great thing
That we can think the world as given to us
Strange and imagine with our small thoughts

Constructed of flimsy memories, sparks,
Hunger, that worlds impossible to us exist
And could extend, beyond the outer rim

Of our furthest, tattered measure of the dark,
Their happiness permanent, rules different.
We glimpse an alternative, fairy-addled

Existence in the mere sight of a dragonfly
Or our nicknames for tardigrades, knowing
All analogy is a passing delight that knows

All delights are strange and small
And passing, but as passing, eternal.
Rejoice. "Once one is gone, it matters

So little whether one was someone
Or no one." The moss piglets swarm,
Translucent in the brilliant, microscopic light.