The Elementals.

THE ELEMENTALS

   I am recycled,
   reconstructed from the rain that fell
   in Kenya and the carbon atoms
   of Peking Man.
   I am your great-grandfather
   come again
   to leave a fresh impression
   on a microcircuit
   of the cosmos.

   I am the gardens at Babylon
   and the Colossus of Rhodes.
   I am Siddhartha and Moses,
   and my children, raised
   on chlorophyll and plasma,
   are the sustenance of mites
   and the vine.

   I am old news
   in a virgin composition.
   I am a work of art, arranged
   in chromosomes and spontaneous
   mutation.
   The ego
   is but a snowflake.

O. David Johnson grew up in Southern Utah and started writing poetry at the age of fifteen. He has worked on both daily and weekly newspapers and his novel was awarded second place from the Utah Arts Council in 2006.