Simple Observation

That night skies appeared to turn
On a point without a star
During the thousands of years

Chinese civilization
Took characteristic shape
Might constitute one

Practical explanation
For its metaphysical
Fixation on emptiness.

The Babylonian priests
Of roughly the same era
Focused on the ecliptic,

Those asterisms the sun
Paraded around
Their marvelous zodiac.

There’s little praise for nothing
In cultures downstream
From their terraced ziggurats.

Sheer coincidence, perhaps
Then, that one astrology
Lined up with the emptiness

And another with the sun,
But the thought that the dark pole
Of spinning heaven

Suggested power in nothing,
Creation as inaction,
Remains beguiling—

Profundity, paradox,
And metaphysics fallen
From simple observation.