Here Is an Infinite Mechanism--Or

​Here is an infinite mechanism—or
Organism. Or lens. Or sidewalk.
Or skywriting. Or eye. Or scribbled
Shadow of a red-tailed hawk.

It is a seal pressed into you,
It is your steering wheel, it 
Is the barque on your canals,
Beneath teh bridge, the soil, starlit.

It is the sky and earth, it is
The slanting rain, the dew. It
Is the word, the wordless curlew,
The curve, the arch, the dragonfly, the grit.

And we are pressed for time, thin
As a scraped dime, so we forget
From time to time, a letter of
The alphabet, the aura of regret.

In the DNA strands of the galaxies
Lines of life glow. And whoever gazes
At the dew-glistening web feeds
His neurons, and through multiple phases

The greater him, of which he is
A limb, panspermia, a flood
Races through alleys of the skies
Gases green and pink and rosebud

Spreading to the island universes,
Strings trembling songs from where
There are no rules, no lack of rules,
A glistening that fills the air.

The Unknown sees the streaming of
The known. The weaver of the light
Of variable and compact stars
Shows the Source of space the flight,

The shape of sparrows and asteroids,
These lights appear in the sky and whiz
Upon the streets of the metropolis,
And all the mountains and the plains are his.