Mosses

The best life to look at goes on

Like suffering as understood

By Auden’s Old Masters. That’s not

To say that it is suffering,

Only that it shares the aspect,

Seen from the human position,

Of happening in a corner,

Some untidy spot, while someone

Else is opening a window.

The best life to look at, in fact,

Could be in that very window,

Mosses growing behind the glass.

You’ve seen it, some idle moment,

Some pocket scene, macroscopic

But minuscule, tableau vivant

Of seeds and gnats, a rotting scrap

Of orange peel, something like that.

Viewed by a child or an inmate,

Another world, original

Of the concept of other world,

From fairy land to multiverse,

But not other at all, humble

Ancestor of mythologies,

Terrariums, and space stations.

The best life to look at shows

Scale invariant to challenge

Or complexity. It’s still life.