Making the Rounds, Utah, 15 February 2017

I celebrated my awareness of nothing
And bemoaned my nothing of awareness,
And then I did the reverse.  Even Pina's
Parkour cross-town choreography kept
The concept of dance mostly circular
And confined. Turn, counter-turn, and rant:
That was my compositional strategy,
Day in and day out for over half a decade.
How can we know the exploration from
The excitement of the commuter seeing
Home and knowing it for the nth time?
There has been one hero in human history,
And that hero was the first machine
We hurled high and hard enough to clear
The air and our whizzing orrery entirely,
Deservedly a voyager, out past the pause
Of no return. The rest was all dancing
And pretending surprise at the way
Rhythm compelled and constrained
The similarity we called timeless geometry.
I was no better nor worse than the rest
Of the tired dogs stamping circular beds
To lie down and die in, me, with my nothing
Of awareness, my awareness of nothing.