I never want to be less

than filled with abject wonder

about the small and the large,

and about the rugged and the smooth,

and the far and the near that

fill these senses with mystery,

and provokes thought deep and long about

the meanings that are never complete

but always birth and cradle new questions

of why and how and what.

 

The stars, whose light is artefact,

bring their ancient form to my eyes

and I wonder from eternity to eternity

about all there is and all there might be beyond,

and about the infinities of possibilities

that these thoughts try to contain but never can

in the finite universe inside my head.

 

The earth’s round and blue expanse

of varied lands and endless seas

stands as a grain in the boundless

boiling ocean of quantum space;

and yet here lies the same mystery

that spurns the thoughts of artists,

poets and scientists alike, who see the finite

and the particular; and yet for them

more there remains in this exploration

of the buried and the shallow,

the final and the incomplete.

 

All is rising and falling,

moving, living and dying in these cycles

that are close to my hands and far away

where no human hands will ever touch;

and still I wonder from birth till death,

and still I look with ancient eyes,

with eyes that looked like my ancestors looked,

with eyes that see my state apart and

yet always connected as intricate part

of this living and shifting materiality.

 

24/9/2017