Thoughts on Will

There is spirit in these creations.
Life despite it all shines out
From cars, houses, chairs,
More inarticulate maybe than nature
But just as needy. It wants to
Change us, so we vibrate with what
Grows outside.

But we can’t perceive this constant

Grace, the swirls on concrete that speak,
The squeal at the gate that needs listening,
The copter that needs to know it’s not mere
Dragonfly — it's like these steel shapes
And polymer personalities
Still are not worthy.

Even now we see the animals and plants

As senses to engage, real somehow,
Not like what we created, though

It always was that other mind,
The one that lets us think
It’s our decision,
Our plan.

The notes of a piano play, still alive,
From 1953, not what we want it to say
But what it is, what we would call
Breathing, if we didn't fixate on
The differences in our faces, in trying
To make the common
Stand apart.

The water expressed in a fountain's
Trap knows a freedom, like these
Words I capture that move on,
Nomads in the monad, to some
Frequency that calls
In certain turnings
Of the wind.

So we who are fixed, who can
No more evolve, may see
Celestial spinning
Of what we’ve set free,
With the look of the horizon,
The taste of apples, the sound
Of baby birds.