Do patterns truly match the mind of God?
In physicality of light or in comprehension,
Passive yet seized before the infinite unfoldings
Within and without us.
By far the greater part without us,
Adding so exactly to hearts so low with humility
That even the garbage of left-overs looks like gold.
Patterns stripped to essentials leave even the Wu Li Masters dazed
And in the funk of feeding an army on scraps.

Quick to surmount and conclude but the storms on Jupiter offer
A more intricate puzzle of shifting colors, turning vortices and
The picturesque for no one to see over billions of years,
Turning their ammonia and vapors to effect, just as on the earth
The rain cultivated its puddles and reflections
Dimpled long prior and long hence with no mind but “no mind”
Of the Zen leader in charge, like the immanent, imminent ghost.

We make our invitations to strange beings indeed,
Strange and foreign as each other.
How profoundly we disappoint ourselves alone.
How happy to share a few minutes reflecting together
That the beauty, ethic, art of Uranus and trident of Neptune are
As color to diverse light unfolding and it is us who ask after,
With the math and science that the human face turns,
The shades replete to reveal and the wheel of our urgency
Cares not for death and failure but for some wing beats,
Sweet apple, tough almond and the oil, together with the water
Making the rainbow sheen, the penitent forgiven,
All free, bound up as we are, singing one another’s praises and fame.
Such are the riches wasted, shelved, denied each,
Until lifting as a great bird
We gather a true and ethical view.

By Rolf Stavig
3/09/2025