Heartbeats

They tell me, world, you’re waves—unreal.
Yet when I love you, gray or bright,
I hear the wind, my heart, and feel

like the shimmering chimes of a glockenspiel.
When I watch the stars on a luminous night,
you, my world, appear unreal

till a katydid, a bobcat’s squeal
or the hoots of a barred owl out of sight
quicken my heart, and then I feel

I’m gliding on eagle wings. I wheel
above the stream, the willows—light
as neutrinos racing through space. Unreal?

Though it’s doubtful I shall ever peel
away your veils, when you invite
my quarks to swing with yours, I feel

the milk in the Milky Way, the steel
in my Oldsmobile, a drifting kite
or a finch in flight—unreal and real
as the wind and the heartbeats that I feel.