Within the Circles of Our Lives

 Within the circles of our lives we dance the circles of the years, 

the circles of the seasons within the circles of the years,

the cycles of the moon within the circles of the seasons,

the circles of our reasons within the cycles of the moon.//

Again, again we come and go, changed, changing.

Hands join, unjoin in love and fear, grief and joy. 

The circles turn, each giving into each, into all.//

Only music keeps us here, each by all the others held.

In the hold of hands and eyes, we turn in pairs,

that joining, joining each to all again.

And then we turn aside, alone, out of the sunlight,

gone into the darker circles of return.

by Wendell Berry