Near A Mountain

Near a mountain,
a man
is losing the things
his hands have found.

He watches
the shine
of antenna
in starlight

and hums
the tune of his final days.

A dozen light years
away,
Voyager One and Voyager Two
tease the edges of
vast things.

In 1886,
his great-grandparents
struggle through birth.

He wraps
the entirety of ages
in twine
and Bible verse
and barbed wire

manufactured
in a century
near his own,

in a factory
near Canandaigua
where his people
come from.