Every Year or Two

Every Year or Two

(“Christ ended the law so that everyone who believes in him may be right with God.” Romans 10:4)

Obsolete. Stuck in a snow globe with tinted glass,
all I’ve seen for a quarter century past are the gray arcs
of a home without corners to stash new thoughts. Left
with no filing system and trusting the handlers who shake
my occupation, I trust the simulations of winter.

Guarded: Within my residence I keep my thoughts to myself,
(heaven knows spokes are heard around the block and back)
and search every angle for another misdemeanor
in hopes my doctrine will not go missing.

(for the astute reader who is about to point out that my metaphor began with a globe and now describes searching every angle, you are to be saluted)

Incomplete. A closed system with nothing new to think,
nothing novel to drink, and memories of shrinking back
if a theory insisted freedom beyond my well-ordered turn.
Well-orbed living means, no matter which route I choose,
I will arrive. The paths are infinite, the destination prefabricated.

Artifacts. If you find my several parts under glass at the museum,
you may construct, with reasonable certainty, the square meter of space
I occupied. One pristine piece, briefly used and sadly set aside;
the Though Generator has been replaced by a turbine which keeps
every word in line, at its proper time, spaced apart to appear,
new

Every year or two.

Transformed. The lovely art I thought had freed me, deceived me;
the walls curved inward reflecting brief light back into a man-sized
follow spot upon a tiny stage. Centered, I was handcuffed by certainty.
Until the infinite touched my single-set theory and burst the walls
from the crystal ball I inhabited.

(for the previous travelers who have arrived here before me,
I will remember I may reside, even yet, in
a larger version of the globe from which I have been redeemed.)