The NASA camera’s shutter
blinked, time and deep space
kept in the now of a page,
great blackness of night’s
stars eddying into stars,
the small, indifferent spirals
swallowing themselves,
galaxies drifting away
from galaxies to farther night’s
moment always closing
toward a moment’s opening,
single moment of all place
emerging from all place
into a farther place that is all,
inflections and immensities
continuing, a lone pulsar
strobing, lost somewhere far
in the photograph, its throb
measuring each interval
reshaping to a newer interval,
night washing over a beach,
breakers combing hair to white
in moonlight’s salty rinse,
where I feel myself rising
to stand in sand, faltering
shoreward, pulled and pushed
in wave-heave then wave-heave,
knowing my now as a feeling,
my years’ memories swimming
through now’s forgetfulness
of eons’ moments swarming
more than all swarming stardust,
vivid pivot-point of presence
like the dolphin glimpsed
in its leap through arc of air,
like surf reaching to receding,
like a breath into a breath,
like an eye’s eclipsing blink,
primordial newness always
vanishing through becoming
the ancient suddenness of now.