The Turnings Poem by Daniel Brick

I am the eye with which the Universe
Beholds itself and knows itself divine.
Shelley, "Hymn of Apollo"

The year turns and we turn
with it. It is always ahead
of us, we never see its face.
We can intuit its moods from weather,
we can know its nature from climate.
This knowledge is a current from the stars.
The turnings put our lives in order.

The earth rotates and glides
through vast solar spaces. We must
acknowledge we are the children
descended from APOLLO, whose radiance
ignites our minds and hearts to glory.
APOLLO stretches his existence
across the Milky Way: Oh, Great Wheel, turn!

None of this is gambling for a god.
Prescience makes a god immune to events
in ordinary time. The Ascent is followed
by the Ecstatic Moment, and sometimes
in this unfolding is the Expectant Moment.
APOLLO approaches our vicinity: Radiance
streams forth out of his being.

We sleep and dream about the lives
of our ghosts. Are they not remnants
of fulfilled existence? Even in suspension,
we can calculate to our advantage,
and turn all turnings into a vast cycle...
In a flash, I will enter APOLLO'S
consciousnesss, or he into mine.