In many houses darkened rooms with
just one window have a shadowy life
as planetariums when the sun sends
a shaft of rays through the glass
illuminating in mid-spiral all those
invisible dust motes. You could be
looking at a slide under a microscope
showing a cross-section of the room
with tiny planets floating and falling
like grains of salt from a shaker
some unseen hand is using to season
the light but I see a time-lapse photo
of the life of the cosmos, specks
of matter appearing out of nowhere,
swirling in solar winds, coalescing
and then quietly slipping back
into the void, a sort of reenactment
the forces of physics are putting on
in the bathroom or pantry or the dim
theater of the cellar so these spaces
might reveal how the universe came to be
and where it’s going although that part
is left to the imagination and requires
that your eyes adjust to the wonder.