To Be There As It’s Happening

Only if you abide in the surroundings,
Long enough, whatever those surroundings are,
You might eventually witness all the rare
Events and creatures visitors never see,
Almost never—murders among foragers,
Condors, cougars, and tortoises on the cliffs,
The city wrapped in a near-complete silence,
The green flash, the whale with her calf, the waves lit
From within, the fall of the ancient regime,
The tsunami, the quake, the hundred-year flood,
The ghost in the hall, the fairies in the wood.