it crossed the trace of five-volt track
with frantic, segmented legs of black,
unbothered by the microamps
or heat from surface-mount resistor lamps.
a ceramic capacitor, four microfarad tall,
became a monolith beside the wall,
it paused, tapped its antennae once on ground,
and didn't make a single sound.
to it, this fiberglass of dark green hue
was just another leaf the monsoons threw,
a geometric forest etched in tin
where current flows like water from within.
i watched it climb the silicon die
of a microcontroller sixteen bits high,
completely oblivious to the fact
that every step it took across the tract
was stepping on a thousand lines of thought
that i had spent three midnight sessions fighting for,
and then forgot.