Playing with Particles
Playing with Particles
Mark Lacy
1
Sand slips
like time through little fingers.
Sand-castles melt,
pulled by tidal forces and foamy hands
to dissolution. Shore-stuff
tumbles in indecision,
suspended in disbelief.
A galaxy of minnows collides
and intersects,
turning through bent rays,
flashing like pirate gold cast overboard,
scattering in fearful,
momentary expansion
sparked by the shadow of a scrap of cloud.
Feathered scraps of white,
rent from vapor by wing-shear,
wheel away and
cry out cry out cry out
their birth before
settling among the great
grasping fingers of the forest.
Wayward leaves fall and
mingle with detritus, awaiting
cremation in great moguls, sparks of life
rising to die, a burnt offering, ashes
borne on thermals like buzzards.
Soon, only mist
wanders through the trees.
Droplets of grief are combed out,
denuded branches wet with nymph-tears.
Gripped with chills, Earth’s
frozen breath flakes and falls
like manna, piles un-gathered
soon to spoil and disappear.
2
There is sleep, and a waiting
to be woken.
There are dreams of new life as
patterns fire
through networks a million strong,
till the day comes when
the trump’ shall sound and nourished,
nurtured earth
replicates, divides,
erupts with shoots and stems,
clusters of blossoms
releasing fireworks
as swarms of humming workers
alight, caress, then –
heedless –
trail the evidence
of their debauchery.
3
At the end of a single day
excised from eternity,
the closest of a myriad suns
descends,
swallowed whole, and
a thousand thousand thousand people
lose count and lose sight
of themselves,
sleeping, dreaming,
mimicking
death and resurrection.
But one lifts his gaze to the stars,
holds his hands to the sky as
particles of solar-wind
slip through wrinkled fingers,
fragments of space
washing over him with desire.
The sun reappears,
uncountable brethren fade into dawn,
and the sum of all moments
releases a collective sigh.
Mark Lacy
Poet
Photography by Markus Spiske