Circles within Circles

1.

Life follows the widening spiral a vulture flies
to the rotting center of life
when a creature dies
and carrion birds take over.

What we do with our lives becomes pastime
as truth, unbound,
tends to scramble outside our circle.

Slips make profound what it was we didn't know,
but thought we knew
and were proved to be dishonest
for our willed unknowing.

2.

The owl that flew caught a mouse
just as day was breaking

and was chased by crows
who could have the mouse for the taking,
since it had been dropped;

but could not call off loud attack:
body count all feathers.

3.

What the owl recalls of this event
is hard to say,
but memory must share in the truth,

as must with crows,
caught up as they were in a war,
also rejoicing.

4.

Is there anyone who mourns for the mouse
that was killed for food,
then dropped uneaten to no purpose?

Who knows what misdirection fulfills?

We go round and round,
citing scripture and quotable creeds,
unsure as weeds
about to what we intend beyond want.

As for belief,
the needless death of a mouse
is a pithy tale
that told,
offers nothing mythic for us to hold,
no succor and no relief.

5.

We are flotsam caught up in a whirlpool
and proceed to exit,
knowing less than the rest of the world
we had judged unfit.

Around and around and coming back,
the swirl of truth
provides but receding handholds
to those who drown.

The mouse, at least, didn't shout:
Why me? Why me?
as the facts of life sucked him down.