“[W]e, whom the cosmos shaped for a billion years

to fit this place, we know it failed.

For we can reshape,

reach an arm through the bars

and, Escher-like, pull ourselves out.

And while whales feeding on mackerel

are confined to the sea,

we climb the waves,

look down from the clouds.”

— Marvin Levine, Look Down from Clouds: New Poems (1997)