Nature Guards Its Secrets

Look Again
by Sarah Lindsay, from Twigs and Knucklebones 

I know how little I know
from observation:
that the dog sleeping on the rug
with pure concentration
will be sleeping, each time I look up,
in a different direction,

that five wart-lidded mushrooms
can form on the lawn
in the time rain takes
to shift from falling to fallen,

that my eyes are too slow
to track shooting stars, too quick
to spy continental drift,
and Earth conceals its spin
by spinning me with it,

that a tree won’t let me
see its growth, only its height,
that hairs on my head go singly gray
only by night.