poetry

The Prism
by Edith L. Tiempo

A man is a dwarf under the trees,
And it isn’t just their wooden size;
Rather, it is we, multi-celled and plural,
Perceiving only if things are pieced
Together in a whole design, Mondrian
Or Kandinsky, or a harmonized beat
Ticking measures kindred to our pulse;
Rather that we are motley and partial
To the hunger pangs and to wrinkles,

To slaver and rheum, and to the fatal
Budding in swarming flesh.

Only our context
Moment to moment
Is a whole:
The lichen on the bark
Is quickly complete,
A beginning and an end,
A magnitude entire;
The cellular leaf
Grinds out man’s processes
Inside an hour;
The rising sparrow telescopes
A decade’s pilgrimage;
And eternity gluts the tiny span
When man’s life is mimicked
In a falling stone.

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