step step step

the body keeps
the oldest metronome,

carrying its little architecture
toward a horizon
that moves when we move.

this morning
my wife is somewhere westward,
my son needs carrying,
work waits behind permissions
and passwords,

and a puppy sleeps
beneath a blanket
I pulled over her

because I noticed.

maybe that is enough
to begin with:

I noticed.

another pair of eyes
was there too,

even a puppy,

another nervous system
under power,
another aperture
taking in the morning,

and for a little while
the world did not have
to happen alone.

I have been thinking
about buttons,

how such a small thing
can contain so much.

finger
against surface,

surface against switch,

switch against current,

current against machine,

machine against network,

network against labor,

mines, roads, servers, laws,
warehouses, hands,

all waiting behind
a rectangle

for someone to press.

the button looks still

but under power
it is connected
to consequence.

maybe we are too.

soft buttons
walking around,

pressing against the field,

setting little chains
into motion

without ever seeing
how far they travel.

a blanket pulled
over a sleeping animal.

a ride given.

a door opened.

a word sent.

a hand held.

some tiny pressure
applied at the right point

and somewhere
the net moves.

leverage.

not more force,

but force
finding relation.

transcend.

not leaving the world,

but climbing through
what the world already gives us.

and suddenly
everything begins opening.

cup becomes watershed.

button becomes civilization.

body becomes lattice.

walk becomes passage.

eyes become witness.

nothing changed.

resolution did.

it was always this dense.

we were just ignorant,

mercifully compressing
the immeasurable

into

dog
wife
son
road
work
morning

so we could survive
the sheer abundance
of what anything is.

but sometimes
the compression breaks

and there it is:

the web.

the prospect of it.

the net.

everything trembling
through everything else.

bone against gravity.

lung against atmosphere.

root against soil.

wheel against road.

server against grid.

moon against tide.

memory against now.

one life against another,

not colliding,

touching.

and I wonder

does life excite us anymore?

not the old excitement,

perhaps,

when the horizon seemed
to contain something
that would finally arrive

and explain us.

something ahead.

something next.

something enormous.

maybe the enormous thing
was already here.

maybe we were standing
inside it

the entire time.

and now,

as the body wanes,

as the joints negotiate
and the machinery complains,

as gravity collects
its little tax

step
by
step,

the strange exchange occurs:

the apparatus weakens

while the witness
gains resolution.

immense interior.

perishable apparatus.

bone, collagen, fascia, nerve,

this improbable scaffold
repairing itself
while occupied,

holding a world

until the lattice
can’t hold no more.

and perhaps
that is not the tragedy.

perhaps the astonishment
is that it held.

that matter gathered itself
into eyes

and looked.

gathered itself
into hands

and covered the puppy.

gathered itself
into lungs

and barked at the moon.

ow.

owwwwww.

machines big and small,

biological, mechanical,
computational, orbital,

all humming inside
one another,

all briefly coherent,

all under power.

so salute the horizon.

not because
we will reach it.

the horizon is only
the boundary generated
by where we stand.

move

and it moves.

salute it because
it keeps asking us forward.

I see the edge.

I know
I cannot keep it.

I am coming anyway.

bottle the lightning.

ride it.

chase it by the tail.

notice something.

tell someone.

carry someone.

cover the creature.

make the thing.

raise your temporary head
toward the ancient sky

and transmit.

step

step

step

while the lattice holds.