Few images so shook me as the circle. The realization, the simple yet stunning realization that every point on a circle is both its beginning and the end was as near a true enlightenment, an epiphany, as any thought I have even had.
I embraced the truth, a geometric one, for my life. My youth was of no more value than my later years. My maturity holds no more wealth than my adolescence. Every moment is of value...was of value...will be of value. Every stage is as rich as every stage.
Christmas Day 1973
god is a circle whose center is everywhere
and circumference nowhere
and this circle am i
knowing no beginning
knowing no end.
only a drop in a ring of tides
to and fro
things come and go
and only now may be known.
as divine as the leaf
i touch first the sky
then lie upon the earth
with each moment between
no more winter than spring.
Brief Case Poems (1973-1979)