The Orb

A poem.

The orb within and the orb far out
Are the same glassblown irreversibility.
Molten and hammered into a unit,
Their consolidated contradictions—
From the tender steps of an infant 
To the sinewed leaps that atrophy
Into scratches on the pavement—
Pave the way for Becoming—
The building bones of knowing
lie beneath.

The orb is scraped and hollowed out—
The within and the far out.
A bowlful of folded paper cutouts—
The hogwash of history—
Everyone has their own—
Written on one side;
The other side says the whats and the whys 
In fading black blocks of both
Typewritten and handwritten bewitchery. 
People queue up to pick one, 
One after another,
And the bowl ends up empty 
Only to be filled up all over again. 

Time goes by, comes back to the start—
The objet petit a repeats itself.
Desire—elusive upon fruition, 
Chases chaos—within and far out. 
The orb gets thinner;
The bowl gets brittler and brittler,
Until a sudden gust rends it asunder. 
The contradictions converge,
The consolidations diverge.
Screens swallow the paper cutouts.
The glassblower’s craftsmanship 
Today runs an algorithmic pattern.
Tomorrow?—long afar,
Farther than the horizon 
The eyes can capture.
Who knows who'll molt the glass
In that future?

Image Source: Pinterest