There's a lot of it--
beaches, deserts, riverbeds.
The number of grains, I suppose, is infinite,
yet countable-- as infinities are measured,
Aleph-zero.
Between thumb and forefinger
I hold a grain of sand:
yellow, irregular, gritty;
contemplating how
within this smallish jot of matter
whirls a universe:
protons, neutrons, electrons,
muons, guons, photons, leptons,
quarks-- "charming" and "strange;"
a cosmos of planets circling,
comets and asteroids coursing hyperbolically,
suns, and galaxies.
Do wee astronomers peer through telescopes,
worry about black holes, the Big Bang, how wide
is space,
jive to the radio music of pulsars,
listen for the tum-te-tum of intelligent life?
I fill my hands with sun-warmed sand
and let it sift through my fingers.
..................................................................Israel Lewis
Published in Wordwrights! Summer 2001