And this one, also from Conspiracy of Light,
is called Nocturne with Monkey.
And it begins with
there's a little quote from Lewis at the
beginning which says "We are
inveterate poets."
Does the capuchin monkey hanging from his
prehensile tail see the stars
or just a speckled ceiling beyond the
Peruvian jungle's darkening canopy?
When his gathering of palm nuts is hindered
by the approach of creeping night might
he stop to consider those points of light?
Might he staring into the deep
comprehend their distance
their size
their number
and then wonder
or is his imagination limited to foraging
and wedging himself in high tree tops
for his nights sleep?
Might he be overcome with awe
or is the sight of a shadowy snake or a
slinking cat at the foot of his tree
his only cause of fright?
A man walking the terraces of night might
be preoccupied with inconsequential things
and not notice the insufficiently bright
smudge of Andromeda's spiral
on a moonless night
but should he stop and marvel at the sky's
expanse his considerations measure more
than space and time
for numbers are only the foothold from which
his imagination's leap thrusts toward the
sublime.
Might it be his own shadow
the shadow of God's image stretching across
the galaxies that carries such consequence
since merely seeing such blotches of light
seems to have no teeth to bite a lesser mind?
We are left like Pascal
terrified by the silence.
