Microcosm - Sept 15 2022

 

Microcosm

Sept 15 2022

When I stopped

got down on my knees

and looked at the crack in the sidewalk,

taking my time

and with a clear and focused eye,

I saw an entire world

in its microcosm.

How, paradoxically, the universe expanded

the further down I went.

Where one crumbling edge

angles up slightly,

a tripwire

ambushing passersby.

Perhaps from frost heave

and sudden thaw,

roots growing under

that nothing will stop.

Or was it shoddy construction

the day the boss

got caught doctoring the books?

Where determined weeds are pushing up,

filling the space

crowding out others.

Lush succulent ones

a deep shade of green,

and some with dusty dry leaves

on tough slender stems.

Busily scurrying ants

ferrying body parts

from scavenged bugs,

a small black spider

standing death-watch

on its gossamer web.

Even wildflowers,

so miniature

and persistent

who would have guessed?

And all I cannot see;

world after world

descending incrementally

down to single cells.

A treacherous walkway

with an unsightly crack.

But even in this

there is unexpected beauty

if you look closely enough

and see it for itself.

So many cracks

filling the world

as you hurry by

your mind turned inward.

You might only notice

when you catch a toe

and stumble badly,

catapulting you back into the world

from inside your head.

That small confined space

you repeatedly end up,

spiralling down

narrower and narrower

until it hurts,

your concentrated gaze

a dizzying blur.

I've often said that the poems I enjoy are small: poems of close observation and microcosm. Especially when microcosm can illuminate something larger, the universal emerge from the particular. This one is literally that.