Immeasurable Time

Immeasurable Time

And if nature loves to hide (it loves to show itself)
then fractals are only flecks of dead matter, sullen patterns,
the ghosts of movement and meaning
while the larger cosmos unfurls in brilliant sprays
and does not rely on human understanding
but rather an openness to listening
and being and dying and being born
over and over.

You can't grasp the meaning of the cosmos
by grasping at its tail, or at a single fragment
cut away and

the universe is not dark, will not fold in on itself
before we have been able to see all these things and more
and mornings and moons and bursts of light, endless
unspeakable but not mute.

And I am not mute, but I have listened. And I

am a single point of light, a glancing blow, a smear of matter

and I will spill across this glittering field

and I will spill myself

and

The universe does not care
whether you look upon it, or through it, or fail to see entirely
The universe does not care whether you have listened
It does not care that you reduce it to dead patterns
It carries itself along
it carries you along.

And listen: Even the trees stretch and strain.
They push the universe open.
They assume the pose of proper (aching) supplication

and the universe does not care if you measure it,
or if you reduce it to mathematics
it does not require your calculation.
It has gone on before, and will go on long afterward
in time immeasurable.