Cavelight

Honestly I can’t imagine
though I can repeat
how caves form, over one
hundred million years—
can not fathom the Earth
in its infancy, leaving a pocket
for rocks to grow in, while
overhead no dinosaurs roamed.
I cannot even be amazed
because such galactic time scales
do not fit, mean nothing
in the electric light, seen
by eyes that saw above, grass
and tree-furred mountains
that all came after this.
Don’t touch the rock; but I did
just trying to grasp bewilderment
and in the end, said, it’s pretty
but too old to mean anything
to me, even though I want it to.
And like starlight, which is
mostly just as old, I take it all
despite trying not to, for granted.












July 12