Circle Round Infinity Poem by gershon hepner

The circle, inexhaustible, precise,
is unconditionally stable,
and, reproduced, becomes exactly twice
itself, which men who try to do aren’t able.

Providing equilibrium to tension,
it is a friend to its vicinity,
and leads us to the distant fourth dimension
where we’re surrounded by infinity.

Inspired by Vasily Kandinsky’s painting at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, “Heavy Circles” (1927) , which I saw with Zachary this afternoon. Kandinsky wrote:

Why does the circle fascinate me?
1. The most modest form, but asserts itself unconditionally
2. A precise form, inexhaustibly variable
3. Simultaneously stable and unstable
4. Simultaneously loud and soft
5. A single tension that carries countless tensions

He added that it carries the greatest opposition, eccentric and concentric, in equilibrium. Of the three primary shapes, triangle, square and circle, it is the one that most clearly leads to the fourth dimension.


12/26/07