Back in the days of VHF
An unassigned channel would fill with snow
And helpless not to see patterns there
You would register a circle a spiral
A sliding past of tectonic plates
The alpha beta chi omega of an unknown script

The boattail flew to the ground from overhead
The cardinal made one hop to his left
Without leaving the branch on which he perched
A squirrel decomposes at the molecular level
The nucleotides refuse to pair
The helix doesn’t stack up

Centaurs and Lapiths contend in London
While their home crumbles on the Acropolis
Tourists at Lascaux get to see paintings of paintings
Most of silent film has evaporated or burned
A thing of beauty is a joy forever
Only because joys not things can be conserved