Echoing Canto of Fixedness
       

The effort made by stars
to move for us is massive:
from our fixed point

looking up through crevice
or canyon, at the vast and intricate
patterning, appraising

from a cleared or blank space,
is frightening. `Miracle'
of tawny frogmouth,

aesthetic as torn wood
in its belying swoop, distending
mouth swallowing pinpricks

of gnat-light, is nudged
aside, or magnified if waxing
spirits move the display,

intensity of mortality,
to account for fireworks:
intertexts and skyshow.

Copyright © 2010 John Kinsella All rights reserved
from Divine Comedy
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission