To Dream Infinity
by Jerome Rothenberg
from A Book of Circles
for Arie Galles
TO DREAM INFINITY
1/
To dream
infinity
& know the time
draws nigh
never more near
than now
2/
the far look
of an ancient
god
his hands
ready to bring us
down
3/
there is
no end to it
the universe
escapes us
& another universe
takes shape
4/
open & shut
absent
a god
whose malice
holds us
too close
5/
still to be
free & clear
the deeper
image
out of our beck
& call
6/
seeing the others
fallen
entering the pitch
& blackness
figments of an endless
mindless world
7/
the beauty
of the neverending
freezes us
more spectral
than a dream
8/
how many circles
make up a universe
if only the eye
allows it?
nothing that the mind
can know or tell
one
two
three
four
five
wild circles