God of Roots

Meanwhile, the heat and light

of a flaming star rush

93 million miles to reach us,

baby girls are born

with their four hundred thousand

egg cells already formed, otters

keep grooming their guard hair, whirling

the water, working air into the deep

underfur, beluga whales swim

along the Earth’s magnetic field,

chicks pip a circle of holes counterclockwise

around the blunt end of their eggs,

pressing with their feet and

heaving with their shoulders,

larvae eat their way through the soft

mesophyll of oak leaves, leaving a trail

of dark feces in their wake, tart juice

swells within the rinds of lemons,

and under the Earth the god of roots

goes on painting the lustrous fringe

with a brush so delicate—

only one sable hair—as though

there were all the time in the world.