A Winged Achene

You see only the few, the names
Visible of vast poetic
Populations you’ll never meet.

This is true for every language,
Except that in some you see none,
Others many—still not a tenth

Part of all their poems swarming past,
Or growing for years underground,
Like larval insects that never

Crawl out to become imagos,
Like infusoria in rain
Puddled in happenstance gutters

No one ever bothers to clean.
Gusts of spores in dust and windblown
Pollen, helicoptering seeds,

Poems scatter culture carelessly
As plants and fungi launch forests.
You only see awe in the trees.