​A field of dust covers the star,
A man hobbles upon a road,
A crowd chants, a mouse
Escapes a field being mowed,

Galaxies twine themselves
Along the filaments of dark matter,
A light shines in the barn,
At the top of three rungs of the ladder,

It is a city, in each apartment
Lives are being lived, the car,
The nation and its hills, the soul,
The snow and the guitar,

The streetlamps, the snow,
Hour after hour, until
Lines of type stream in your chest,
Not merely fanciful,

The light of lights,
The secret of every molecule,
Silence, you watch the snow fall,
As you stand in the vestibule.

​Carefully check the records
If you wish to study the mysteries
Of the undulating plains and
Hills. Which hill is a congeries

Of stray rubbish that breaks
The ankles and offends the eye,
And which offers a summit
And a pool reflecting the sky.

Sometimes the circling hawks
Appear to be crows. But so
High, rowing in the currents
Of the sun, in its spangled flow,

If the wind were to cease
How all the light would dim,
How the lizards would dart
Into crevices, dry and grim,

Till you would think that
The heavy dragging of stones
Is the work of your pride, but
It is the echo of dry bones.

​A soft, rotting depression
In the soil and a white sun
That blazes and whitens the sky
Into oblivion,

Over a field of sweet-smelling
Hay. This is my field,
My sun, these spots of decaying
Hay as well, unhealed--

Or smoke it out, if possible--
Because there is no field
That does not have spoiled grass
Where the scuttering mice are revealed,

And when it is turned up
By the harrow, in its shame,
It dries in the heat of the sun
And smoke rises from its flame.

​In the Naryn region of Kyrgyzstan
The pebble on the road contains
The entire landscape, the hills
Wrinkled and rough down to the plains.

When you shrink down to the size
Of a quark, you see the vibrating
String, the vibrations that ring,
The very part of you that stands creating.

And through the window you see
The sun, you are the sun, a mote,
A sky. Then the heat shimmers
And distracts you to your overcoat,

You have lost your wallet, you
Have lost a hand, you take 
A step but have no foot, you
Splinter, you fall, opaque,

Unhealed, shrunken, wild, you think
You are a flaming star—but no,
You are a pitted moon. But a star
Flares, flames, it streaks a glow

That silvers the sky, till in
The forest you read by its light,
Which is the furthest halo, the story
Of the princess freed from her plight.

​Look for a name that is so complete,
Over an entire universe, the vacuum,
The wormholes are calm, the sabbath
Fills the wheatfields, looms

Spin silver. The grass exhales,
Veins of silver, rough, an aster,
A wind, silence, a flag moving
Rests, from a name with one master,

A wind where there is no wind, yes
Where there is no yes or no, where
Electrons smudge, mirrors glare,
Glints weave in and out of the air,

A mustard seed, a cosmic stream,
A road that flows in every direction,
A ladder, a lamp, a chemical formula,
A gaseous shell and sweet confection.