It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on,
	it shakes sleep from its eyes	
	and drops from mushroom gills
		it explodes in the starry heads
		of dandelions turned sages,
			it sticks to the wings of green angels
			that sail from the tops of the maples.

It sprouts in each occluded eye
of the many-eyed potato,
	it lives in each earthworm segment
	surviving cruelty,
		it is the motion that runs
		from the eyes to the tail of a dog,
			it is the mouth that inflates the lungs
			of the child that has just been born.

It is the singular gift
we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death,
the genius that invents the future,
all we know of God.

It is the serum which makes us swear
not to betray one another;
it is in this poem, trying to speak.