Before glimpsing outlines of whorled branches,
you smell spruce needles, know gophers lie
in tunnels below ground and sense their tracks.
You can't measure the background tracks
of the big bang but believe in finding what
is needed when you must. A sea captain
brewed spruce beer during a voyage and rescued
his crew from scurvy; a famished hiker
consumed spruce needles and emerged out
of the forest. In the darkest minutes before dawn,
you won't ever live to experience pure silence
but were never a composer yearning
for that nirvana. Standing in the cusp of cold,
you hunger for a hummingbird darting from scarlet
penstemon to penstemon in midsummer,
for a shearwater skimming over ocean waves;
now, in this dissolving darkness, you strike
a match and cup this second of warmth, this flame.
Arthur Sze