Poems old and new

The Wheel

The wheel


Slowly the brown turns green
Stealthily the green turns yellow
And then brown again.
It’s Milton’s subtle thief in the main
The supreme mover-doer in the prime.

It alone motivates history,
Causes and effects geography,
It’s beginning shrouded in mystery,
It’s end beyond our inquiry.
It is found in arts and philosophy,
Inclines many to philanthropy.

It rules, serves and submits
To cosmos, chaos and clever events.
Makes, breaks and browbeats
The mighty, the willful and the outrageous.

Everything at its beck and call,
Gyres of time, trap, trespass and tame
The wild, the villainous and the unduly violent.
Sweeps out the old and ushers in the new,
The wheel of time pauses only with tide.