Gazing Through the Night

     or the grass and its bugs,

I know in my heart these swarms
are the craft of surpassing wisdom.

     Think: the skies
          resemble a tent,
     stretched taut by loops
and hooks;

and the moon with its stars,
     a shepherdess,
          on a meadow
               grazing her flock;

and the crescent hull in the looser clouds

     looks like a ship being tossed;

     a whiter cloud, a girl
          in her garden
               tending her shrubs;

and the dew coming down is her sister
     shaking water
     from her hair onto the path;

     as we
          settle in our lives,

like beasts in their ample stalls —

     fleeing our terror of death,
          like a dove
               its hawk in flight —