Science*
Here in the park with our twins,
James and Sam,
we chew over the merits
of dandelion clocks and daisies.
In the mid-distance a plastic bag
vaults into the air,
hangs - momentarily -
then shillyshallies
across the blue haze
of the box trees.
It flips again, turning, over and over
through cornea, humour and lens
to the back-projected retina
and optic nerve;
a pure white
negative space
dancing
beyond the dull fact of itself
like a breeze-bloated soul,
as Anaximenes would have it.
And so it is:
hard pressed upon the earth,
you feel defined by the absolute
weight of gravity and light,
as if that blue space
between the trees
is the only glue
holding it all together.
So many years
I've tried to grasp
the significance of this,
only to find my hands
cannot bear the heft
of these shifting absences,
just as a bag cannot bear the weight
of its own airy nothingness
forever:
getting caught in the damp twist of roots.
A dog flits by
licking sunlight from the grass;
James looks up warily
from dog to Sam and then to me,
a minor distraction,
as we get on
with the looking at
and the naming of things.
*First published in Three Candles (www.threecandles.org)
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