I LEARN...

I LEARN...

...this morning
from a mosquito 

about space: sitting
in what begins to open 

into spacious silence,
I hear, distantly 

at first, the familiar,
high-pitched whine 

that wakens every
last sleeping corner 

of a still-drowsy
mind to the attack; 

then closer, closing in
at speed, the whine 

crescendoing, now
close in, provoking 

the familiar reaction,
the urgent, neuro- 

muscular desire to slap
the creature down. 

And then it's off
again, darting hither 

and yon in different,
unpredictable directions, 

the sound rising and
diminishing as it 

flies, triangulating,
quadrangulating, 

dimensionalising
into near and far, into 

down and up, into left
and right.  And I sit 

watching the sound
as it diminishes  

and grows loud again;
listening, defining 

space, eyes closed,
mind infinitely alert  

to the mosquito's
fleeting path; creating, 

yes, my own dimensional
path through space, and 

back again to silence.