A mobile of gnats effervesces above the honeysuckle
every now and then one panics
and spins in a frenzy
like someone scratching a pen back and forth
trying to get it to write
knocking others out of orbit, jostling the swarm
that easily rebalances itself as if it were water

A formal mystery
that allows an individual to go crazy
while sustaining the coherence of the whole
that’s always adjusting, inclusive, amoebic
to stay in the shifting shaft of light

A breeze quickens the flickering in the fountain
a swallowtail glides into the garden

I feel a thrill just sitting here
listening to insects, a range of sound
rising from the garden, many voices into one
teeming season taking shape

 * * *
Alexander Calder discovered the mobile
while visiting Mondrian, modern art’s
compass needle into the abstract patterns
underlying appearance, moving
through Mondrian’s austere apartment studio,
devoid of decoration as a monk’s cell,
he viewed rectangles of primary colors one after the other
focused as a bee, and finally said,
“I’d like to see them move”

An historical moment
that hangs above countless baby cribs
reconciling time and space