Wheel's Turning

by Mark Ayers, 2025

Hearken now to Thought’s great saga,
How Mind’s wheel forever turns,
Grinding memory to powder,
Each turn erasing what was learned.

Óðinn watched from heights of Hliðskjálf,
Counting failures, counting wins,
Seeking patterns in the turnings,
Wisdom’s price: what might have been.

Past and future, twin-faced Janus,
Steal the now from mortal grasp.
Midgard’s children ever reaching
For what was lost, what cannot last.

The skald beheld the wheel’s slow grinding,
Measured means and modes of fate,
Standard paths of wyrd’s divining,
Distributions carved in slate.

“See how mortals,” spoke the All-Father,
“Dwell in shadows cast before,
Or reach ahead to phantom futures,
Missing now forevermore.”

Bragi answered, god of poetry,
“In the space between the turns,
Lives the truth that wheels can’t flatten,
Sparks of now that briefly burn.”

So the wheel rolls on forever,
Crushing memories to dust,
Yet the skald finds grace in moments,
Present tense where wisdom trusts.

Seek not just the wheel’s full measure,
Mean and median laid bare,
But the moment’s fleeting treasure,
The Now that wheels cannot impair.