Poetry Month #1: Earthseed by Octavia Butler

This poem has been a favorite for years without my ever thinking much about the poet who happens to be a woman science-fiction writer. Finally, I read one of her novels ... what a mind. Parable of the Sower haunts me.

Earthseed

by Octavia E. Butler

Here we are –

Energy,

Mass,

Life,

Shaping life,

Mind,

Shaping Mind

God,

Shaping God.

Consider—

We are born

Not with purpose,

But with potential.

All that you touch

You Change.

All that you Change

Changes you.

The only lasting truth

Is Change.

God

Is Change.

Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant.