Ultimately, a way out: through the lines of a fern,
Stretching for a modest sunlight, filtered by the curtains,
Ending early in the day. Stretching for a modest sunlight,
But sustained by artificial lamp-glow. Bowing to
Convention, gravity, the written laws observed.
Ultimately, a way out, or at least, through.

Reveling in ambiguity, a philosopher once asked: "How
Do I know if I am a man who dreamed I was a butterfly,
Or a butterfly dreaming he is a man?" – A moment
Of wistful thought, or maybe indecision. Dreams,
Butterflies: symbols of the metamorphosis, of change.
So early, here at the beginning of the circle.

Some days the darkness is so deep that it obscures,
Other days it is like a muslin shroud. Between these two,
The specific instances of lives, their revealed core:
the slow transgression from a light-exploded morning
to the sudden end of motion, sound. A shroud,
an infinite space: the two are not dissimilar.

An imagined progression, from the alpha to the omega.
A line. A circle. There is on one hand an end-point, and
On the other only the beginning, every step. Footprints
Through the sand on a rainy day: someone walked, and
Doubled back, and walked again. The rain will erode
These slight depressions, inconsistencies.

Specifically the sight of an old man who plays the same
Song on the same violin every day, for spare change.
Specifically the sound of gulls flocking together, huddled
Close. Specifically the event of a stone skipping water,
And the wake it leaves. Specifically abstraction, intuited
From multiple instances of inarguable weight.

There is a beginning and an end and the end
Recapitulates the beginning. This is the law of the circle,
The argument supported by spatial distortion. A curve
In her arm, taste of sweat, minor exhalations. Man,
Butterfly: the difference is so slight as to be negligible.
A circle between the two, the dreamer and the dreamed.

The tangents of life: strange, untenable. One minute on a
Beach, sand and stones and birds, another minute home
Drinking coffee and then, another day. The tangents that
Drag people from one place to another, the lights of their
Cars streaming in the night, their hands running through
Their hair, smoothing their suits, their dresses, their eyes.

Another philosopher suggests: the traces humans leave
Are as lasting as marks in sand, or rather not at all.
Something he did not choose to elaborate upon, after all,
There is little more to say. The comment driving a small
Wedge between what lives seem to mean at the time,
And what they mean later: a brief period of lucidity.

The past far enough to be seen, and close enough to be
Observed. Perspective is everything. Strange that
He plays the same song every time, developing
Resonance. Strange that the wake of a skipping stone
Arrives at the shore, eventually. Possibly it is damaging
To desire a comprehensive understanding.

So many thought hours given over to completion,
Then to arrive at the beginning again, but changed.
The world manipulates people, forms them in its image,
Circular, imperfect, sad. People also form the lives of
Those around, but poorly, in images of their desire.
It is assumed the world does not bother with perfection.

Darkness then. Closure of the circle, incomplete
Transubstantiation. A way out subsumed, drawn back in
By gravity. The wavering, the haplessness, digressions:
Ultimately, these tangents are determined by relation
To the whole. Where it began, where it ended,
The details now shrouded in memory –

But lightness also: the kind of lightness when the sky is
White and the ground beneath is flat and wide, the kind
Of lightness this implies: bone, fingers, hair. It washes
Everything; the days must be longer now because
This light is quiet, encourages solitude. Everything is
Washed, and the rain falls white, and wet.

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