The young untimely fearful and cautious bard

Tipped his hand once more and wrenched letters

Into words, words into verse

And thus galaxies soon leapt from the page 

And spun their stars to light the orbitals of planets,

Whirling them round like lassos to rue wonder and joy, awe

In the wide-eyed earth children

Who sat spellbound, allowing gravity to do its work,

Allowing the universal master to do his work,

Feeling the feeling of bearing witness to a titan

Raising a redwood from the dirt or a bear clawing a salmon out the 

Summering spring or a magician pulling not a rabbit but an entire

Antelope out of a hat.

 

The spry thoughtless curious and exasperated bard

Spaced out in bliss, blessed and heavenly dyes rippling across

The eyes of his mind, the eyes of his conscience and the 

Ears which heard nothing and the nose which smelled only memories,

Placing fragrances, light and airy ones, into one certain cabinet of the

Imaginarium and perfumes of the body into another,

And thereupon after giving himself to this space he thundered back into

His seat and bade himself to bathe the page in

Ink and to give the children another show, and so

Pacing himself,

He issued forth a deluge of funny but archaic -isms which

Saw susans bend into flipperbottoms, and falsehoods trade

Secrets with grendles–no, grundles–no, with Grendel–no, with

Gretel–of fairy tale fame;

But he soon realized the children could not see what he saw,

And so he backtracked and breathed and let the picture 

Do the talking:

Space, oh wondrous space, black and

Blanker than verse and bleaker than a bottomless

Beaker but lo! there are planets here and on these planets

There are gorgeous life forms and in these life forms,

Some of them, there are hearts that pump blood and will the body

To extend life spans in the name of love and lo! there are

Carnivals put on by mites and mares and lo! there are beings

Which stab each other rather with kisses than swords and who honor

Oaths of betrothal and learn how to build fires out of meager

Kindling before eventually learning how to tame wildfires and 

Use them as restorative fertilizer out among dead prairies and

Lo! 

Oh–

Lo! Lo! Lo!

 

The savage eager mercurial and happy bard

Wished to write more

But for the pain in his neck

And so he took to the streets and walked and looked 

And looked around everywhere instead—

Lo! the vessel, 

Lo!