On the Axle
On the Axle
On the axle, on the axle, I spin and I don't know if I'm the one who moves,
Or if the axle moves me like a wheel caught in a windmill's grooves,
The spoke is crying out... look at him... but all I see is dust and rattle,
I descend into hell and brush the moon with my lash... and can't tell which end is the saddle.
God is the unseen axle around which everything keeps turning,
The wheels pierce through my eardrum with their long roads, raw and churning,
The kids graze the clump of dried-out grass beneath the heavy noon bell's dome,
And I spin... and I spin... on the same old axle... through the same stars I've always known.
The motion brands me like cattle with iron that is red-hot and raw,
The trees slice off my shadow with their knives... and I'm left with none... with no more,
Life runs behind me like the dust kicked up by wheels on an evening road,
And I call out after it... is that me?... but the echo won't bring back a summer's load.
With all the roads wound up into a dizzying and blinded reel,
The axle moves me and I move the axle... in this deaf and bitter wheel,
I descend and rise and descend again... between hell and moon without a stop,
On the same old axle... in the same old rattle... with no way to drop.
Am I myself?... that question cracks inside the axle like wood in a freeze,
Or am I just the wheel that spins around an axis of mysteries,
The motion branded me slowly... and I no longer know when I ceased to be,
And the axle keeps on turning... without me... or with me... alive and free.
The noon bell rings of wilderness over the scorched and forgotten weeds,
On the axle, on the axle... always... through all the lives and all the deaths one needs,
The wheel's spoke whispers... believe it... and I believe... because I have nothing else to hold,
On the axle... on the axle... God moves me... and I move the world... and it moves the world it's told.
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