About to walk down the spiral staircase,
I pause, and notice a knot in the window frame.
I haven't looked closely before.
Now I SEE it.
It reminds me of a drawing done today.
I begin to look around the house, at the
wood grain in the floor, at circular,
spinning lines in a bird's nest on a shelf.
Everything is reduced to line and pattern.
I see an omphalos in a piece of wood,
and another in a drawing nearby,
and understand the elegance of math,
orbiting electrons and spinning galaxies,
though I can't explain them,
except like this,
in pen and ink and blurring lines.
I notice the little bits of things picked up
along paths - ordinary yet miraculous things -
whispering stories of wombs and caves and
small creatures hiding in trees.
I marvel at a tiny spiral relic of shell.
Again and again I carve a spiral path
with ink -
as if spinning around
the navel
of a tiny universe.
