The abacus cannot tell the time
but my watch turns calculus into child’s play.
I watch the birds pick at seeds I spread on the bricks,
they seem to know what they are doing;
so certain, precise, never chipping their beaks.
Watching my child, all hands, feet, ungainly head
I am taken by the imprecision, the lack of focus
on where the beak should next strike.
But then thankfully he is not a bird,
dependent upon the rigid monotony
of pecking kernels among the rocks.
Again I am taken –  this time by a revelation –
I have spent my life among the rocks,
preparing them, arranging them, seeding them.
Then my awkward child raises his uncertain gaze,
an owl dilating in the night,
and sees the moon, full of dust and reflections.