night by day - a poem

the cicada song makes it's way to my ear
this croaking chorus of lonely males
desperately seeking mates, longing for immortality
not unlike the song of the mendicant monks
whose lilting voices rise to the buttressed roof
on a plain in a cathedral, heavenly light everywhere

and the lilt of the whipporwhill lifts to the arched limbs
in a forest still where it's mates all dance in unison
on the breath of the humid airs, above the glistening pool
as the first leaf dies and falls from it's tree, trailing
the current of tropical stream, following an impossible path
through an infinitude of space, it takes this way, then that

what law governs this chance, that can be united by similitude?
by what art does the bird of paradise make his way?
dance, dancing now here, now there, the perfect hypnosis?
what first sets this idea into meaning, this notion into reality?
what track does it follow, by what engine is it propelled?
though it has the force of a whirlwind, it is not a train on the tracks

and yet the world moves on in constant cause, in linear fashion
it marches along in step with the clock, the arms moving in precise sweeps
mechanical minutes beating the drum of the already done
while inside, the circular wall makes way round the great floor
light slowly making it's way through shadow, i wonder which came first?
and the fluid motion from thought to thought, free flowing one to the other

belies what lies beyond....