Suddenly a rinsed rag of sand,
a log in water with woolly tea-tree
rooting forth, their blind-gene reach of life
circumscribed in hard random luck.

Little poppering water sounds
finger my ears with love;
I thought: there is more power in water
than anyone can know.

A child's sky is pasted up with fluff
and, beyond the lake, unbreached there,
the forest's cross-stitched mantle,
its great intricate quickening.

And beyond that, on the next ridge,
or the next, or the next,
are the chains and the biting blades
that prove an animal clever, and blind.

© Pete Hay