As I rotate without and within
When I’ve died I’ll be born yet again
I’ve come and I’ve gone
Like the dusk and the dawn
Can a cycle be said to begin?

Ten minutes to the end—
What do you do? What would
You do if in ten minutes you
Would churn away, to dust,
With Death's hand on the crank?

She awaits your ashes to sprinkle
In her garden but you may
Not be ready. There's plenty to do
In ten minutes I suppose—though
I think most of us would

Hold our breaths until the churning
Started—hoping that Death would
Be merciful and give us something
For the pain.

From stellar cores where chaos writ,
I formed in fusion’s blinding pyre,
A relic of the infinite,
Forged deep within a cosmic fire,

Ejected forth by death’s collapse,
A supernova’s final breath,
Through voids I danced in endless lapse,
A mote of life within its death,

The cradle of a newborn world
Ensnares me in its molten womb,
Where under continents, I’m hurled,
Entombed within the planet’s gloom,

Millennia grind my prison thin,
Till human hands my chains unbind,
In forge’s roar, they mold my skin,
Their tools to shape both steel and mind,

A plow to carve the yielding loam,
A blade to cleave, a shield to bear,
A bridge to guide the weary home,
A rail to span the open air,

Yet even iron bends to time,
Corrosion whispers through its veins,
Its once-bright strength succumbs to grime,
Returning dust to earth’s domains,

But iron’s tale can never end,
For stars await their ancient kin,
To forge anew, to break, to mend,
A cosmic cycle, born again.

The cycle breaks us
unless we break the cycle.
After each turn,
each tumble
we'll see the markers
for an exit.
It'll be our choice
whether to take it.
It'll be our choice
whether to chance
another circuit.
But never doubt
it's our turn to pick.

how sweet the dark which hides me;
the brine that filters through;
the softness of the sand.

I cling - am singing - bivalve songs
my gills alight with blood.
hanging by a byssal thread in wait,
for what? indeed.

nutrition filters through my shell
- the tastes of distant loves -
I hunker down, secreting possibilities
that I can not see, of distant dreams.

the universe within my nerves expands,
too vast to be contained.
it explodes beyond myself;
no mantle can frame it.

it flows from me - this longing.
a remembrance of moments,
of chemicals in current.

every tear a life unlived.
each drop a thought potential.

the tides within establish norms which permeate
- instigate -
the turnings of this realm,
bringing forth the hardened form of signals I've rebound:

"I'm here! Hello?"
"Me too, me too!"
we echo through the seas,
anticipating textures on the tides.

our swirling minds reflect within,
entombing us with times.
we live inside our memories.

no past, no future, it all is now,
now, and now, and all around:
it's all we see.
and then...

we live again,
mirrored by the things we've grown around us.
from birth. through life.
we scrape, then die again, again.

all at once and forever, we thrive and fall,
encapsulated in our hemispheres which turn
and twist
and spin.

a spiral forms;
projects the pattern of our dreams without.
each sensation painted in the layers we wear
until it shines.
and see how it shines!

the pales and pinks and silvers shift,
revolve within themselves to show
our deepest fears
our brightest joys
as rainbows, smooth and silken.

if they could only know the truth:
that our beauty's accidental;
coincidental.
that we would shed our skins to swim,
settle quick into the plains
aside our lovers sending signals with the swell.

but now, we wait.
for what? indeed.
blind, deaf, locked away.

here, at the bottom of the world
I drift again through images of being.
I can not say which have gone,
which have not yet come.

another turn in the spiral is cast
- another layer hardens -
and I remain,
clench my shell and think:
how sweet the dark.

it’s summer here,
and my seasonal depression
slips away with the waves at the beach.
my eyes brighten with the sun,
and at last, i feel my heart warming,

the leaves are falling from the oak outside of my window.
autumn. lets old loves go with the seasons,
stripping itself of the sun damage from summer.
shaking itself clean of scars.
(i’m healing old wounds)

in winter, i slip.
fall along with the temperature.
stiffen along with almost everything
that meets the cold,
why am i so cold?

i sprout a little in spring.
defrost from the frozen winters.
wait for the new.
i see the oaks' new leaves.
i see the flowers in me bloom.

it’s summer here,
and i begin to feel like myself again.
letting my heart thaw
and my limbs stretch.
(the cold can’t bite me here).