Look for the center of gravity,
he would say, in his inimitable
wry way, dry poker-face at play
here/there. One thing Noguchi
never did to permit the eye its will —
to fix upon, to stand among,
to rest at the edge or, sit perfect
still within. To enter one must slide
ever towards and then away
from some decaying orbit's certainty.

No doubt we'd like nothing
better than to claim a vortex
for our own, to exclaim There! and
acquire the cloak of inferential space.

Perhaps it is those two large chicklets
out of the pack, those embryonic pillows
that sit there, lay back and consider
how like the comfort zone sleepy leaves
cling to their own idea - phaseolus lunatis.

But the spirit is the root and not
so easily appeased, extends to wrap
the whole in motion, to pluck our hearts
and throw us from a sun drenched height
of flaming steps in pyramidal light, to
hurtle down the mind's eye, to unsettle
our location, to put it out of sight.

Already, it grasps the unborn
root of eye, spirit-thing that awaits
the first roar of water from those falls
the tightened coils set to spring within
a ring of fire, the tail of a scorpion,
a shoot-to-be of a bean sprout-to-become.

The search goes on for the spirit of the thing,
the quiescent heart of the meristem
to enter stone, by root or stinger. A quest
that remains just a little off-center.