Universal Curve

author’s note:

I still can‘t get my mind around the notion that the Universe curves.

However, as stated in the poem below, I know that I curve.  And if I curve, then so does the Universe.


UNIVERSAL CURVE

A boyhood question was recently answered
for me:
you can never reach the end
of the Universe

because--get this--

the Universe curves...

so if I keep traveling...

I’ll eventually return
to a lonely fort
halfway up a mountainside.

If the Universe curves
then so do I--

yes, I have seen how
all those routes I’ve taken
to get out of myself

curve

curve around
and lead right back in--

after every absence
I come back to myself
and discover my perspective
has somehow
shifted.

One time, I walked
across town
through all the scree
on the ground
---we all shed
     so much scree--

and at the end of my journey…

I found myself
sitting in a living room
reading a history of the world

and when I turned around
in my rocking chair
my mirror
was standing in the doorway:
she had walked all the way
across town
only to discover
that the Universe curves.

And that is how
we‘re able to see ourselves.

No one can avoid travel--
a tree traveled underwater
for a year
without ever
leaving its roots.

Everything curves
because
everything contains circles.

If the Universe curves
then so do I.

© 2010, Michael R. Patton

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