A centre and an expansion <br />a life centred expanding <br />the force of the centre whirls <br />a life without limit but it says <br />a centred life what gods the centre <br />does not tell but a centre <br />and from there a spiral <br />which has a beginning but no end <br />the life shaping the death the death <br />shaping the life it seems this life <br />that life could not be told <br />need not be told <br />every life drawn here <br />drawn because it could not be spoken <br />even in a lilting Irish voice <br />speaking a spiral sentence for <br />Irish sentences are like spirals <br />the centre expands without limit <br /> <br />the life was lived in the circle of the year <br />that comes round again sowing harvest <br />yet never back to the same place <br />as the mind the vision the experience expands whirls out <br />like a wild dance celebrating birth marriage death <br />yet passes the familiar place each season <br />and love love for the world <br />expands into a holy love <br />spiralling without limit yet never forgetting the centre <br />like a child on a gate swinging <br />knowing it’s safe because of the hinge <br />it knows but does not know <br />for others made the hinge <br /> <br />and now we read the spiral on a gravestone <br />tracing back from infinity to the source <br />everything that has an outward <br />everything that has an inward <br />and so there is no need for words <br />the spiral like a poem about life <br />read it forwards read it backwards <br />read it with thanks see it as grace <br />the thick green grass curls over it <br />the lichen yellow orange green <br />placed like a lizard <br />blesses this the most eloquent <br />gravestone in all the world <br />in a green field the clouds white <br />the sky blue this is the centre <br />of the spiral here now and <br />there is no ending to the spiral <br />the gravestone says <br />but a starting yes<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-spiral-scratched-into-an-ancient-irish-gravestone/
