Cosmogony

A yarn ball and a hill

maintain an equipoise until

         their neatness starts to bore the gods

                   of potential and energy

         who hedge bets, reckoning the odds

                   of when the rest will be

set in motion, and who,

first stumbling upon this clew,

          constructed both the incline and

                   the inclination to unwind.

          Like most gods, though, they haven’t planned

                   to stay; they mastermind

the scheme, ex nihilio,

then slip behind the shadow show

          and designate an agent, chief

                   remaker of their mischief made.

          Each time, disguised, this leitmotif

                   gets salvaged and replayed,

a universe begins,

for orogens and origins

          suppose a Way Things Were before

                   some volatile, untimely That—

          sweetness perverted by the core

                   or belfry by the bat,

or here, a hilly green,

whose still life, eerily serene,

          completes their best contrivance yet:

                   from high above, a williwaw,

          a hiss, and then the silhouette

                   of one terrific paw.