Circles and Straight Lines

While we were excluded
(so that we should not infect you,
pollute your food, or tarnish your mirrors)
we sat in circles.

You sent us out, always in a straight line,
sometimes numbered,
sometimes measured,
sometimes counted,
and we camped on the edges of the world;
a world of your straight lines,
of well worn profitable tracks.
The world you had us make you.

While sitting in circles
around a crackling cooking pot fire,
spinning the dances
of the absent goddess,
singing back home songs to remember,
speaking in circles outside in the square,
showing letters,
sharing stories that travel
to remain in the swirling channels of the ear,
you sent us out - always in a straight line,
to the future -
to the horizon of the next thought.

History. You claimed each achievement, in chronological order, in scribed or typed lines across a page.

We sat in circles
before and after we built your straight world.
Now, you let us live in it
and you let us have some words,
written,
but shredded by the next click.

We move forward to consume the horizon of the next linear thought
when we used to sit in circles here
spinning stories that rest,
in the spiraling channels of the ear.