Intelligent dust—
bobbing,
to the birdsong,
interpreting the information
from the rocks
who articulate the water
pulsing
through them
—maybe no more intelligent
than us
but willful, as we are,
who hear
marimbas
in the stream,
but to them...
who have no problem
dissolving in aetherial waves
it's natural to know that birds
are testing out melodies
along electric wavelengths
of the spheres where music is,
and even the paper trees
crackle in the orchestra
and things drop to the moss
and whistle through the leaves
on a score that we can't read
by the rivulets of water like
some Austrian composer
who rides his charges hard
because the sound it makes
is true.
The train
in full human cry
decides then to come through
but it's silent
in the teething of the wind
and all its hidden
being.
I have nothing here;
I'm allowed only eyes.
Squirrels paint
friezes of the trees.
Forsythia cleans
the early evening sun.
What was not there suddenly
is,
the world of skunk cabbage
and daffodils
—enough of a world—
turns
to allow a moment of grace:
everything
is metaphor.
