The Time It Takes

My ceiling is a white universe,
The spherical lamp-shade
A world suspended in the firmament:
Contours highlighted, a sprinkling of dust;
The air-conditioning unit
Is a vast starship probing its past.
All are white with clinical perfection.
No stars are visible, no sun;
Only in silence they orbit
The bed I am on.
 I wonder suddenly at the space I comprise.
Yet I am sure the inhabitants
Are too preoccupied to notice 
This gargantuan figure down here:
They must be far too busy calculating
The light years to Mars


Then Sing

“I grow flowers in my garden. What do you grow?”
“Thorns of spite.”
“How do you grow them?”
“With all my might.”
“So the swans do not swim here?”
“No more. They nest
And then flee.”
“I have not been to the estuary
This year. What goes there?”
"The fiddler swallows air and lays
Along the meniscus of the
Swollen sea and seems
To sing of the dusk and
The ocean’s skin.”
“What do we learn?”
“Nothing. Unless you have gills.”
“I have wings.”
“Then sing.”