To Dream Infinity

by Jerome Rothenberg

from A Book of Circles
for Arie Galles

TO DREAM INFINITY

1/
To dream
infinity
& know the time
draws nigh
never more near
than now

2/
the far look
of an ancient
god
his hands
ready to bring us
down

3/
there is
no end to it
the universe
escapes us
& another universe
takes shape

4/
open & shut
absent
a god
whose malice
holds us
too close

5/
still to be
free & clear
the deeper
image
out of our beck
& call

6/
seeing the others
fallen
entering the pitch
& blackness
figments of an endless
mindless world

7/
the beauty
of the neverending
freezes us
more spectral
than a dream

8/
how many circles
make up a universe
if only the eye
allows it?
nothing that the mind
can know or tell

one
two
three
four
five
wild circles