Data 

I’m noticing once again the singular things

I noticed as a boy: the hidden springs,

the sound of silence, nap of tablecloths,

sea taste of iodine, the scents of clothes,

raw grain of wood, a scrambling interface

of ebbing tide and incoming tide race.

Light, hot on the “fanatical existence”

of furniture and the brightwork of kitchens,

on country garage, hen run and mown hay,

shines everything, even on the rainiest day,

with the reflected or intrinsic glow

of an intentional world we think we know—

the inert, potential force of things material.

Our knowledge instrumental, our facts unreal

because unlived, unfelt, what can we use

for wisdom but these fierce realities?

We don’t need telescopes to appreciate

the silent music of the sky at night;

nor do we need computers to contemplate

that morphic resonance where swifts migrate

in close formation from a river mouth

knowing by instinct when to travel south,

also by instinct to retrace their flight

when hawthorn is in leaf, its flowers alight.