Columns

Round and round it turns,
Taking its time as it rolls uphill;
Turning so slowly that
You’d need to etch
A groove upon its circumference
To track its progress.

You visit the site,
Where the wheel is,
Once—or maybe twice—a week
And record the position of the groove,
But, what you find is that nothing has changed.

[Some time has passed since your last recording]

The wheel sits there
As the world passes it by—
It has seen
The rise and fall of empires,
The waging of wars—
Of battles won and of battles lost;
But, despite all that is said,
It moves nonetheless—
Little by little,

While mushrooms litter its surface
And feed on its bitter decay,
Waiting in full bloom for the pollinator
That will never arrive;

But once it reaches the top,
Where the pollinator does come,
It’ll roll down the other side in a blink of an eye—
And there’s not much you can do about it,
Except to watch it turn
For the wand that guides the wheel
Is nowhere to be found.