Skirting Eternities Path Poem by Christopher Withers

on occasion - as a child,
eternity would visit me.

at night:
lying, insomniac in bed,
it would stand,
wordlessly beside my head, and
i would know its presence
by the unfathomable distance
between our size, which
would push on me,
squeeze me down into
an infinitesimal point.

in day:
the sun would slowly grind, with
impossible force, across
the bare blue sky -
an unimaginable mill stone
grating against the ether,
signalling its watchful eye.

in visions:
conjured by my brother, as
with closed eyes, we'd try
and imagine true nothingness,
beyond space, time and the universe.
this would invoke visions of white, but
my forming mind with disregard
this 'something' - my head would spin,
and the world would take on
a very strange slant, almost
as if my mind had been broken
under such impossible effort.

so,
i would lie back, and give myself up
to the unfathomable distance felt inside.