I see their trails in mud,
the shining earthworms who made
their way upward, eyeless from the roots.
And there are the backs of dung beetles
shining, the yellow slugs moist
near the leaves.
And then, by day,
the satin blue backs of flies,
lovely, veined and transparent wings
as if the signature of creation
is written on the small,
the unloved
and they are measured
equal to the large,
matched by their unpraised light.
Then there is the cosmos
created by spiders.
Do not slight them
who at birth
spin their hundred strands of silk
from their own bodies,
and then you’ve seen it, the drop of dew
in their round silk, woven.
The night, too, is a place of marvels,
the creature light,
the eyes of the skunk and rats,
not vermin, but all the beginning of the great,
dark to the mind, light to the heart.