WEBVTT

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Here's a poem, "Darwin's Eyes."

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"He kept seeing himself, a
swallow peeking from its nest.

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Moss, the crawl of a wasp
across his study window.

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And he kept having to
drop everything and duck

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as certain callers
appeared in the mirror.

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He'd aimed at the front door.

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A beak, he could
understand, a talon

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was a hand holding his own.

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It was the eye, with
its vicious complexity,

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that stabbed at him.

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Lightning bolts of
doubt, a cyclopean

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stare, 10 years his origin
stewing in a stack of notes.

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And the eye, perhaps
why he went back,

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after all was said and begun.

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To the worms, spending
his last years

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watching them, as his fingers
wriggled over piano keys,

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exploring up the scales and
down, concerto, and dirge.

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His first passion is final.

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Those tender needles
with their dark impulse

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to feel all around
them, our Earth."

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