Reflections

What do the ducks and geese see, paddling and pushing along? Do they know teal sheen of feather, orange flash of fish, herringboned brown of breast, and rippled reflection of sky and plant and bird on the marbled surface they swim?

And what would they make of the blown glass in the museum by the lake? The smooth, cool surface like water stilled but swirling with haloed orbs, reflecting rays and stringed ovals on a polished platform. The black room, like dark matter or vast space, the bowl like a solar system, spinning under a pin of light.

And what of the great swirl of stardust, the explosion of light and color spun from the oldest supernova, eons before human, and art, and duck, in that distant past even now visible in a suspension of time like water or glass, holding what is and what appears to be?