They dance around in rings—

(The best & most current draft is They dance around in rings—[the big 2024 revision])

They dance around in rings—
They come back to the start,
And dance harder 'round again,
Believing the straight path's their part—
To be further fuller enough-but the wind
Plays them up like— a feather, so they sing

Notes scatter-blown this way then that,
All in earnest it might, would seem,
Never caught or touched since unreachable.
But such astonishing, kind tokens
Are dropped by this dream.

She danced around for me.
She tried to mend my heart.
Her kind of mending could fix neither's so—
She tore it all cautiously apart
For wind blown ideas I try to pause as
A weight that drags, trying to be free.

What gates do you see down aways
The path you are not on,
Where angels walk hand in hand—
Whispering "We are enough,"
Though some things that mattered are gone?

Started while residing on Westmoreland St. in Syracuse, NY; 1993 or 1994, aged 25 or 26.