I
Much of transfiguration that we hear,
The ballet of the atoms, the second law
Of thermodynamics, Isis, and the queer 300
Fertilization of fish, the Catholic’s awe
For the life-cycle of the Nazarene,
His wife whom sleeping Milton thought he saw;
Much of the resurrection that we’ve seen
And taken part in, like the Passion Play,
All of autumnal red and April green,
To those who walk in work from day to day,
To economic and responsible man,
All, all is substance. Life that lets him stay
Uses his substance kindly while she can
But drops him lifeless after his one span.
II
What lives? the proper creatures in their homes?
A weed? the white and giddy butterfly?
Bacteria? necklaces of chromosomes?
What lives? the breathing bell of the clear sky?
The crazed bull of the sea? Andean crags?
Armies that plunge into themselves to die?
People? A sacred relic wrapped in rags,
The ham-bone of a saint, the winter rose,
Do these?–And is there not a hand that drags
The bottom of the universe for those
Who still perhaps are breathing? Listen well,
There lives a quiet like a cathedral close
At the soul’s center where substance cannot dwell
And life flowers like music from a bell.
III
Writing, I crushed an insect with my nail
And thought nothing at all. A bit of wing
Caught my eye then, a gossamer so frail
And exquisite, I saw in it a thing
That scorned the grossness of the thing
I wrote. It hung upon my finger like a sting
A leg I noticed next, fine as a mote,
“And on this frail eyelash he walked,” I said,
“And climbed and walked like any mountain goat.”
And in this mood I sought the little head,
But it was lost; then in my heart a fear
Cried out, “A life—why beautiful, why dead!”
It was a mite that held itself most dear,
So small I could have drowned it with a tear.
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