An Appeal to the Reckoner of Sand

— Archimedes set out to determine the number
   of grains of sand that fit into the universe.
 
 
Dear Archimedes, there is so much to consider when you believe
every grain of sand is a possible universe unto itself.
 
Think of all the little gods who may or may not be asleep at the wheel,
the hazards of creatures who forget to pray. 
 
Think of worlds that abandon their factories of gold
for a more promising afterlife.  Are they misguided, do you wonder?
 
Think of all the others who will stay—
so many micro-kingdoms armored with pearls and bones.
 
Archimedes, there are a thousand ways to listen to the rain.
Just as there are a thousand ways to count your grains of sand.
 
Tell me where the music of the rain travels after the twilight?
Tell me the stories of beach glass, stars and water.
 
Einstein said only two things are infinite:
the universe and human stupidity, and he wasn’t sure about the former. 
 
Aristotle distinguished between the actual and the potential
while Plato had two infinities—
 
the great and the small.  Archimedes, where do you stand?
And the heart?  Where is the heart in all of this? 
 
Shakespeare wrote of infinite love, abstract yet true as salt. 
You must have some explanation. 
 
In a parallel world lay a parallel world.  In a particle lay a particle. 
Within matter, matter.  At sixteen my first love
 
gave me a gift just a week before drowning.  His gift? 
An hourglass:  a world of time entombed in yellow sand.