Definitions

 

Apoptosis:

the highly regulated enzymatic process

of intentional cellular death.

 

Why death?

What if the intention was

life?

No, I understand

our careful definitions

wield a distance

from within.

They are

so useful and

so valid.

 

But so is belief

in the unbelievable,

in the unknowing,

in the indefinite undefining,

 

Consider Rana sylvatica,

the frog who survives its winter

by becoming it.

Imagine —

in a storm of chemical proportions,

it quiets its own heart

and freezes solid.

It becomes

a still life

of molecular motion,

a breathless moment

out of time.

 

Yes, we can measure death.

We can study hibernation.

We can wait for spring…

We can even simulate it.

 

Those are leaves papering a burrow,

insulation.

Each leaf a singular work of art,

released into flight by

what we call

apoptosis.

 

Meanwhile,

inside,

a cellular light still burns,

hotter than any thought

of the frog,

unwinding a new story,

letter by letter,

integrating the crystalline paradox

of informed belief

in each unrepeatable moment,

in spring,

in our own shattering,

in the audacious process

of our intentional

indefining.