Particular Beauties

Whether it was a particular beauty Stirred the tearfall from the eyelid’s rim, Rinsing the world once more with self, Was it not there the general peered, Thousand-eyed, down from the peak In the last of all imaginary sunsets? The light divided in half, the half Divided again in half, the way Zeno’s paradox makes nothing move Because an infinity of points between Target and arrow, though never seen, Exists. And there is snow in a capsule, A solid floor of individual Flakes that, shaken, settle in a field— Parachutists growing where the grass, One moment before, was only natural. I am speaking now of the diminishment Or enhancement of enchanted objects, Of how they turn into nothingness Or burnish the imagination: A fire at the bottom of the sea, For instance, or a mind in space Thinking its way into science fiction, Or, inside the skull, a little world Clinging, about to be thrown away— Miraculous lint under a bell.