Michael and the mainecourse wizards of poetry analysis,

I’ve been dissecting this interesting poem about Astronomy, and think I understand the first three stanzas but not the fourth:

When The Smoke Clears

The mind, that rambling bear, ransacks the sky
In search of honey,
Fish, berries, carrion. It minds no laws …
As if the heavens were some canvas tent,
It slashes through the firmament
To prise up the sealed stores with its big paws.

The mind, that sovereign camel, sees the sky
For what it is:
Each star a grain of sand along the vast
Passage to that oasis where, below
The pillared palms, the portico
Of fronds, the soul may drink its fill at last.

The mind, that gorgeous spider, webs the sky
With lines so sheer
They all but vanish, and yet star to star
(Thread by considered thread) slowly entwines
The universe in its designs—
Un-earthing patterns where no patterns are.

The mind, that termite, seems to shun the sky.
It burrows down,
Tunneling in upon that moment when,
In Time—its element—will come a day
The longest-shadowed tower sway,
Unbroken sunlight fall to earth again.

— by Brad Leithauser