I’ll use every word

I ever learned

three times over

trying to make something

singularly beautiful

as certain circumstances

refracting and dispersing

light and water

Name 50 shades of blue

in an attempt to

describe the shadow

across your eyes

twilit and troubled

in that city overcast

by tall buildings

and dying men

We are ants with

a pile of sand

and three weeks to live

trying to build

a cathedral

You argue that ants

aren't aiming for beauty

just tunnels and chambers

food storage

and a treasury of eggs

I look at the new overpass

just a curve of concrete

point A to point B

and if that were all

I'd be inclined to agree

But there is that span

of bridge, spiderweb

tensile and grace

singing songs of

orange light soaring

over a hundred thousand

cars like ants

in the morning rush

Spun out of imagination

and a desire to match

the wisdom of biology

the beauty of wildness

the chance collision

of light and water

into glory risen high

in the face of time