Waving Back from Yesterday

Where waves pass lives, filters follow.
Where filters evolve, find lenses,
The compound eyes and oil droplets,

Cones packed with mitochondria—
And not only lenses for light—
Synaptic, alimentary,

Lenses and filters everywhere
In bodies, from free-living cells
To multicellular giants

And their extended phenotypes,
From colonies of eusocial
Organisms to nation states.

Everything’s pulsing waves at heart,
And hearts are only examples
Of the ways waves can be focused.

Every loop and cycle culls waves
Within its own wavering, and
Any telescope you extend

To the night reaches from the end
Of a water clock of lenses
To sense those faint waves waving back.