Small Orbit, 22 January 2018

I’m turning in circles. I’m missing something.
I’m staring at a five-petalled flower,
The wooden blades of a motionless
Overhead ceiling fan. Is there a way
To similarity that doesn’t involve anything
Staying perfectly the same? Some rates
Of change are too slow for our perception,
Given. Some changes are too microscopic
To be detected except by extraordinary
Effort, and others, zero-point radiation
For instance, are largely theoretical
And can’t be directly monitored yet at all.
Is it possible to say all similarity is the fault
Of faulty perception, not illusory, exactly,
But a kind of incomplete information?
Consider this flower. Set the engine spinning
Lazily, and some of the change becomes
Apparent. Set it spinning fast enough,
The petals vanish into a blur. We don’t call
The blur a stable thing. Fast-enough
Cameras could take pictures that recapture
The appearance of the fan blades still.
Time lapse long enough or fan speed
High enough and even the blur vanishes,
Although the blades would still break
An errant hand thrust into that vanishing.
Similarity, including similarity to the point
We perceive as eternal stillness, unchanging,
Would then require nothing stay the same,
Only such dramatically different rates
Of change, in the ever-changing observer
As well, that the contrast simply escapes
Our ability to perceive any difference
But difference it still is, always, and stillness
Only the greatest difference of all, change
Outside our range, one direction or other,
The essence of change, change within
Change, contrast too great to measure whole.
All this time, the whirling flower fools us still.