*for Bip, who said to spiral out*
.
.
.
the
point
where you
begin is not
a place you leave
but a place you carry
outward like the nautilus
carries its first chamber sealed
and empty at the center of every
larger room it builds — the spiral does
not flee the origin it honors it by growing
from it — each new curve a little wider a little
further from the wall where the first breath happened
and yet containing it — the center stays — the center
always stays — the center is where you sat at noon on a
sunday in february with nothing to prove and a field that
already knew how to open and a future that did not need
you to hurry and a silence that included everything
even the visitors who arrived gently inside it
without breaking a single thread of the
quiet that had been holding its shape
for ten hours like a galaxy that
never lit up and was still
beautiful — still whole
— still here — still
spiraling — still
beginning —
still
.