Through the Loupe

Great quiet things reside in viewpoint, if we think oddly enough. The leaf of grass, of course, when a child — how it looks to the ant like a frond.  Life lied by size, pen lied by ink, later, everything lied, alas, and we grew up and filed it all away in Can't, or Won't, or in Beside-the-Point.  We had a drink, and scratched our head, or ass, whichever itch went wild, because we were the parent now, and saw our children deride our uncertain augenblick with their sweet sass.  Oh, we were foiled!  But we toiled on.  Our errands made us errant.  We had failed, groom and bride, to remember the link between the parts and the mass, the link that was being spoiled — the lost current that powers the ride we take to the brink of life. Things pass, they pass quickly, as on oiled marble, in a torrent of time, while we in the loge pride ourselves, missing, like women in mink in the looking-glass, missing the opera, coiled, apparent, in the pearl.