The Wheel Turns

Look down upon this wheel of light,

Look out across its stern,

Look up through pale-gold ring where bright the dreams of childhood turn,

As past, present, future spins,

In thirds our time conceived,

This season of our life,

Our worlds of make believe.

. . .

The wheel is a circular object that converts energy that can be harnessed. The central hole or hub houses an axle that allows the wheel to rotate. Wheeled vehicles, potter wheels, and water lifting wheels first appeared simultaneously in Western Asia close to six thousand years ago.

After the wheel was invented, it also began to be used as a metaphor to represent the steady repetitions we experience like the phases of the moon, the seasons, and life cycles.

The only material used in the still image 'The Wheel Turns' is light. Depth is conveyed by the fading forms that reach into the darkness. Movement is captured or implied. The poem suggests we view the wheel from above, behind and below. It alludes to an idea of time being a three spoke concept: the past, present, and future. The poem concludes with the words make and believe. When together 'make believe' as a verb is to pretend or imagine. As an adjective it describes a person who imitates something real.

At the heart of every snowflake is a nucleus of dust. This tiny particle could originate from any number of places: the smoke from a forest fire; the minute specks of volcano ash that are pushed into the high atmosphere; the fine debris that falls from a meteor as it streaks across the sky; the microscopic particles picked up by the wind from plant spores and the cells of feather and skin that living things shed each day.

I ponder on the journey of a particle of dust. The dust from one living thing to another.

From someone standing on a hill looking skyward, from distant sand, and then for days across an ocean far below, until on high, ice crystals enfold and change the particle of dust to form a single snowflake that lightly tumbles to the earth and, after time, comes to fall upon my palm. I sense its cold but cannot feel its weight. like the image that accompanies the poem, it is as light as light itsesf, waiting to be known by the warmth of my attention. I easily ignore a solitary snowflake, yet its journey can be as great as any I have made.

•

A Solitary Snowflake Falls

A speck of dust from soil or sand,

From powder down or loose brushed skin,

Encased within its centre lays,

A prick from past of living thing.

As snowflake falls,

The grain returns in shallow husk of crystal white,

Come gently lay upon this earth,

In wait and warmth in day or night.

ORIGINATOR · Mike de Sousa

ART FORM · Abstract Art

COMPLETED · 2020

Free to enjoy. Copyright maintained. Not to be used for ai or commercial gain.

◀ ◉ ▶