The Impulse to Swing out the Arm

​The impulse to swing out the arm
Of the Milky Way, the space
Between two neurons, the breath
Of the horse and the steeplechase,

One tells a story, the other 
Is a stone; one is a river,
A xylophone, the other is
A movelessness inside a quiver.

They need each other, the mammoth
And the ironstone, the quartz,
The glitter of the sand and 
The string of Dodecanese ports.