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(“To see a World in a Grain of Sand,” William Blake)

Within that single droplet
of rain (a loupe is needed)
Hanging precariously for the moment
at the very tip of the arrow-headed leaf
On the white-blossomed
Juneberry seen as through
his wide-angle lens or prism of some kind
which bends the light to his liking and reflects
an image focused on ground glass—
containing the entire outside world of sky
and sun and land and trees concentrated
and lying behind and beyond—

If one were only small enough to see
Inside of this moist globe
Or large enough to imagine
The earth magnified from God’s seed.

Published in the October 2021 issue: View Contents
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Stephen Rybicki is a poet and academic librarian on the faculty of Macomb Community College, and the author of the reference work, Abbreviations: A Reverse Guide to Standard and Generally Accepted Abbreviated Forms. He lives in Romeo, Michigan.

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