Cosmos

Cosmos

Not in some lost and distant basin of space,
empty now of all but dust and cosmic waves,

from which the whole creation spreads
its tendril prongs, innumerable, shimmering,

but here, where striders glide the glaze
above a bed of leaves' unmaking, where

salamander larvae slip their jellied orbs,
and the drab toad tunes his impetuous tenor,

where wood ducks streak the sky above
the newborn glint of hyacinth, where

a father and his sons might bend, might
cup their hands and strain the vernal shallows,

here the universe begins.