Look at It All Together

Look at it all together, there are
A thousand miles of snow and field
Of thin, leafless trees up north,
A million voles and owls, concealed,

And all that together seem to make
A pattern. Or do they really? At least
The pattern that we think we see,
The fields in our own minds released.

On the other hand, focus
On each vole, its every flea,
Its hole, its family, its seeds,
Its every joy or agony.

The frightful vulnerability
Of children randomly born to mad
Parents—some percent will 
Survive—or the desert nomad

Feeling that the sky and sand
Are blessed for him, and that his way
Has been ordained both emerge
From the same ocean and its spray.

There is no chair. It is merely a pulse,
A wavicle. All there is
Is the all. The chair or molecule
Is merely the apparent fizz.

God only sees the all. I guess
There is no chair. The all He sees
Inhabits every chair, even if
It’s just a shadow on the breeze.