The shadows, lying this evening across the white
Windowsill, shifting slightly in a motion
Without apparent source, contain within their graces
The possibility of meaning absolutely nothing.
I can trace the outer line of the elm
To where it bisects the fencetop and follow it
From there to its conjunction with the edge of the eaves
And on to its perpendicular penetration of the sky
Toward the north at 40°, and in all the peculiarity
Of that route, there is no intrinsic need
For it to lead anywhere.
The ant lions busy with their traps
Beneath the tree don’t have to signify anything.
They can crater down in the tricky sand and disappear
Into the deep points of their cones, and they aren’t forced
To be silly. They aren’t compelled even to be noticeable.
Like the giant roach, Periplaneta Americana, covering
Two inches of road by itself, they might stay right there
Recognised or not forever, both circumstances
Equally indifferent.
Beside the erect and jagged criss-cross nap
Of the pine forest, among the myriad points
Of insect appendages and seeding squaw weeds,
Inside the brilliance of the night sky shining
Invisibly on my skin, I can acknowledge or forget
The outline of my own body heat intruding into the
presence.
Watching now, I want to esteem this night
For being simply a blessing of the undemanding
And the noncommittal, for being an ingenious
conglomeration
Of detail, an expanding wholeness
Of particular activity composing a great blankness,
Which I might choose, precisely as I wish,
To invest or ignore.
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