He Reconciles The Scientist And Poet

Bent on quarks and omega mini,
eyed by the cosmic bits
that you eye on a photoplate
[spy into infinity),
you might deceive yourself
Breaking worlds into worlds,
banging clocks together
in infernal time till
the gears spill
like guts in streaks of white,
you might spy yourself
peering back; or
spin a beam
around the rim of universe
and see the back of your own head
bent over a retreating horizon.
Backed inside the whirling particles,
you watch your watching in a gas darkly.
Each time you break
something, it only makes something,
and the journey spills your guts
like gears,
and tells you stories
in different words.
You might receive yourself
coming back another way.

Published in Great River Review (1978)