Structure & Surprise

Creatures of this order,

the filmy mayflies,

break the membrane, shake off the water, and rise

for their mating—an airborne quickie—

then fall back to drop their eggs and die,

all in less than a day.

A dedicated life—focused,

narrow even—it may seem to us,

who name them thus;

as we—frail, fluttering—must seem

to stabler things—say, rocky shale,

limestone, marble, granite—which,

themselves, in the eye of a god

(if such should be),

are brief as desire

and shapeless as the dust

within them

they are becoming.

—Bill Morgan