The Dome Of Tiles Poem by Sandy Fulton

The universe is a mosaic, changing, evolving.
All we know comes out of
a barrel of tiles randomly assorted.
We dip deep into the tiles.

They stream through our fingers,
spill, fall back into the barrel.
A few cling and stick to our hands,
to be placed upon the universal dome.

Tile after tile, shapes and colors
form a mosaic vivid with action,
resplendent with shining ideas.
All things we can imagine—

things beyond imagining
are in that barrel, eagerly abiding.
Some of the smallest tiles
have changed the world.

They wait shyly, those little ones,
to be picked up and placed correctly.
They hide and whisper softly, tempting us
to hear them, be chosen,

and placed into the mosaic.
Sometimes we place a tile wrongly,
and others follow in a puzzle that seems true
until the mosaic goes awry.

Anyone can reach into that barrel.
It's not restricted to rulers and savants,
though they'd like us to stay trapped
in parasols of ignorance, easy to control.

Brave ones tug the wrong ones out, discard them.
What pain it is to go wrong, to realize errors,
what joy to learn humility, search
for other tiles and begin again!

Could Heaven be where we will see
the mosaic complete, the panorama revealed?
But we don't want to wait.
We, the impatient, the impulsive,

whose grandparents were nosy monkeys,
are driven to fill the blanks
on the dome of time and space
always e x p a n d i n g!