The Firmament

My brain takes in
the world one-
tenth second at a time.
In that moment, my legs
can take the beginning
of a step. I have not
moved forward yet,
have not seen much.
But the buzzing of
a billion lives
has taken place.

My full step takes
about a second. You
can measure by
the clopping of my cane.
The firmament of the small,
the glimmerings of the missed
and the movement of the unseen
sparkle everywhere on this
brutish, clumsy Earth.

I live on a real scale,
limited by my concerns
in a cubicle of minutes
and inches. The firmament
of the earth is as large
as the firmament of the sky.
The day is like a thousand tingles
I don't feel while I am
quickly running restless,
flattening trails in the familiar.