Worlds within Worlds

Beneath double-convex lens focused upon a crocus leaf 
turquoise creature with six legs a latching upon the infinite plateau
universe of thumbnail scale and dewed with plant's honey secretions
realm of birth, life, and now death, 
as Lady Luck bug, Volkswagen with mobile antennae and mandibles clicking
dismembers prey and feasts upon the death before her.
Her red M&M shell splits, gossamer wings spread and blur the air
takes flight and defines a cosmos not so micro as her prey
with three dimensions not two, reality of both sky
and leaf of my crocus moving to capture Spring sunshine.
I place lens glass into a velvet pouch then into my pocket
turn to my own world of birth, life, and death
no more than a transdermal patch upon a sphere we call "Earth"...
After chuckling at insects' cosmic minuteness
I draw out a series of brass cylinders, nested one within others
to form an instrument with several glass lenses.
Eyes squint, gaze out into star sprinkled universe, vast and quiet.
What powers and wonders lie far out there, beyond the reach of eyes
like Palomar and Hubble, I muse, as magnified vision crosses the sky.
I search for an eye, bulbous and larger than any
quivering behind an immeasurable lens, trained by larger hands, upon us.

Scott Speck
1998