Ordinate Fondness

A sizable black beetle
Of uncertain lineage
Meandered across the road.

The light was low, and the road
Hadn’t seen a vehicle
In half an hour. The beetle

Appeared routinely focused
As any foraging thing,
Proceeding near linearly.

Among common responses
Of anyone noticing
Could have been speculation

(What sort of beetle is that?)
Distaste (ugh, ugly beetle!)
Superstition (an omen)

Or art (let’s take a picture,
Make a sketch, write a fable
About a bustling beetle).

The beetle reached the road’s edge
And continued through the grass.
At what point would the actions

Of a large-ish black beetle
In late afternoon shadows
Have ceased to impinge on things?

Is every event tied up
To every other event
From one scale of the cosmos

To the far ends of all worlds,
Or can actions be absorbed
Whole, as if they never were?

You’ll never know. That beetle
Didn’t know, unless, of course,
You have been much mistaken

About the nature of worlds
And the actual beings
Of sizable black beetles.