Universe

Uni-versus, together turning around

He drives and the highway un-spools under our tires.
I knit—stitch, and stitch—my yarn un-spooling
from its skein onto my needles, turning at the end of
each row. The way we’re constrained to turn around
at a dead end and search for a different destination.
The way our planet moves, turns, revolves, tilts,
maintains its course within the universe.

So, we’re heading west, a direction that summons us
into its light at high noon. A mile or two, and there’s
an exit for a side road. We turn into it, arriving soon
at a locked iron gate and the hindering sign—Dead End,
posted in red on a rusted metal plate. Entrance denied.

Yet it’s right there, in the place of disappointment,
that sunlight winks its enchantment off the weeds
thrusting up among clutters of broken stones. There we
park, with a blue glimpse of the bay, content, unobserved,
settled in comfort. On the car radio, Mendelssohn
and Bach. John reads the Christian Century. I work on
this poem in my journal, and the radiance of the day
is sustained by the God of the circling universe.