Imponderables

Life’s imponderables :
         by night the star-glistered sky
into which we peer
         with wonderment tinged
with awareness
         of our own insignificance
The mere thought of infinity
         can be exhausting
hence the need to personalize
         to imagine that there are
other vibrant worlds inhabited
         by beings just like us
convinced as we are
         that we are the defining
consciousness of the universe

In a park just outside Peckham
         the first crocuses seen
yesterday from the train
         a tightly packed patch
of mustard-coloured leaves
         standing proud
on the long green grass

Such are our common or
         garden vectors – today
tomorrow and yesterday –
         which as our imagination
hurtles into outer space
         become increasingly redundant
: and yet anatomies obsess
         beauty that is in the naked eye
of the beholder and symmetries
         that make suburban sense

Soon the daffodil will follow
         buds will burst and spring
will be upon us : thereafter
         the rose and with it
the beguiling thorns of love
         and the petalled bed upon which
lovers lie late into the night
         gazing out through the window
at the vast ancestral home
         where their forebears first met

John Lyons