The Cosmos Takes a Breather

Upon a bench of polished stone,
gazing beyond the lake’s veneer
of star-flecked waves, you fret, alone.

Tall pines and poplars murmur near,
and out at the horizon glide
pink wisps of cirrus. You can hear

lusty cricket-creaks collide
with lonesome katydids, the odd
glunk of frog-splash. In the wide

twilit heavens, a healthy pod
of narwhals weaves through nebulae   
more radiant than goldenrod

at noonday, swimming smooth and free,
igniting agitated cries
from blue jay, crow, and garganey,

for in the sky, like butterflies,
in jazzy green and neon red,
with purple fins and amber eyes,

dance all the planet’s fishes, fed
on asteroids and antimatter,
frolicking, romping, fins outspread

and flippers flailing across the platter
of the world. But now the blare
of avians has eased, their chatter

scattering saneness through the air
while, on the lake, a loon wails on,
giving those phantoms such a scare
they wither with the mists of dawn.