The Quest I

The quest is for perfection
Invested in one's pinpoint of time, 
That personal thing that ticks seconds
In the ear.  To do the thing right
Is the nearest one gets to a smooth flow,
To something sure.

And it is vast, vast as space, stretching
Eternal in the eye and it is small, small
As a dust speck blown onto skin, caught there
Held in one's armhair.

And glasses and magnifying glasses give trouble
In the ascent of it, in the accretion of expectation
And experience.  It is filled and emptied, emptied
And filled and all the while it expands, contracts,
Holds the smooth flow of thought, the ticking of time
In the ear.  Yes, it reaches the brain, that tiny thing.

It is trouble most dire one faces, for our exhalations
Are quick, soon gone.  The briefness of it is a lack,
A lack of the needle in the haystack which blackens
And tarnishes such precious gilt.  That ticking wilts,
Falters, stops.  And we are caught frozen in mid-breath,
Our walk peppered with pinheads sticking from footsoles
Turned up to the sun.

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