This recording was originally much longer than what I've got for you here. I took a fork in a trail which led me to an overlook that was so magnificent, so overwhelming, that I just stood there, mostly mute. It's vastness, it's quiet emptiness: it made me feel small and like a thing touching divinity.

Later, on that same hike, I discovered tiny tiny flowers that I hadn't noticed before. They were just as shocking to me as the canyon. Big and small: this hike was really killing me aesthetically.

It took a bunch of research to figure out that the flowers I looked at were [Gilia inconspicua], or "shy gilia."

### TEXT OF POEM

"Interlude III" by Karl Shapiro

Writing, I crushed an insect with my nail

And thought nothing at all. A bit of wing

Caught my eye then, A gossamer so frail

And exquisite, I saw in it a thing

That scorned the grossness of the thing I wrote

It hung upon my finger like a sting.

A leg I noticed next, fine a mote,

“And on this frail eyelash he walked,” I said,

“And climbed and walked like any mountain-goat”

And in the mood I sought the little head,

But it was lost; then in my heart a fear

Cried out, “A life- why beautiful, why dead!”

It was a mite that held itself most dear,

So small I could have drowned it with a tear.

[Gilia inconspicua]: http://www.swcoloradowildflowers.com/White%20Enlarged%20Photo%20Pages/gilia.htm