Circles

That certainty of return burned a fearing in my eye.

To hear this poem read aloud :

Watercolour

Circles

I used to be afraid of circles
So relentless in their turning
So seemingly pointless
Without arrival

Where do they end and begin?

Their simplicity haunted me
Like a void
That certainty of return
Burned a fearing in my eye
But I could never look away

Yet now
In my riper years
I see the serenity of circles
How, when you demand nothing of them
They are free to do their work

When you cease from asking their cycle to stop
They can carry you deeper into the heart of all things 
Like a whirlpool
It stirs ever deeper 
Violent to the unknowing eye
But a grace to those who long to be held by the raging waters

For the breath is a circle
And so is the womb
The earth is a circle
And so is the moon

A circle never lets you go
The only way is forward
Just like an ancient tree 
Who pushes outward in her orbit
It is the circles inside her trunk 
That mark growth and age
She returns time and time again
But never quite the same