Meditation on Copepods and Obscure Information

Some days I look around wildly,

convinced I'm missing something crucial.

Some days I pick up the guitar and try

to play toward something that won't fit

into words but might change the silence

where words grow, that place like

the liquid spaces within the living rock

in the salt-water tank where tiny

obscure creatures wait to be born.

You must look very closely to see

the copepods, smaller than rice grains,

translucent as rice fried in oil.

But once you know, you can watch them

crawl over the rock and each other,

feast on the purple and green algae,

delirious with delight, knowing

nothing of words or chords

or trains, the humming pumps

that make their weather,

the glass walls that keep them alive.

~Jeff Gundy