IF, Sonnet #608

If the end doesn’t end, what then?

This moment is already contingent.

I dare you to count from one to ten,

To ignore a found dime, even a cent.

Each moment just comes back to us

Like the wind in the tree’s susurrous.

We’ve never been here before to be?

Yesterday and tomorrow are empty.

If I walk around the block every day

The houses never look the same,

Flowers grow and trees disappear,

The sidewalk means don’t lose your way,

Signs say don’t misremember your name,

But nothing guarantees that I am here.

Three Spheres II (Escher), Sonnet #366

The past is images faded into patterns,

A dim, smudged diary of pleasures and concerns

We see through a crystal sphere of water and oil,

A second universe of calm and bitter moil.

The future yet to appear is already here,

Like the moon in clouds or a mask, a faceless sphere.

We can’t be sure, but we’re almost convinced it’s there,

As we take on faith there’ll be a next breath of air.

The present is our own distorted reflection

To be, added to the past’s fading collection

At the instant we see the next experience

With a curious and innocent prurience.

No; present is our eyes, myriad blinking spheres

That see through reflections to find that we are seers.