Palimpsest

Round and Round

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I spun a top the other day.

I sent it round and round

With a whirring whining hum.

Patterns blended in cotton candy ribbons

Dissolving into blurred lines of colour

As you would expect such things to do.

I watched it idly for a while

As it skittered over small imperfections

On the surface it was navigating.

Finding a path of least resistance,

It tilted and wobbled a little

To the left and to the right

But carried on its drunken way

Mesmerizing eyes and minds.

I sent it off with high hopes

But with little certainty,

Anticipating its irregular course.

I held no hope that what was set in motion

Held any life save what I imparted.

I harboured no hopes or aspirations

For this impossible thing to defy Newton

And go spinning on forever.

It was a bagatelle, a mere nothing,

A witticism of no import,

Witty at the time but tossed off

With a nonchalance befitting its weight

And easily forgotten.

And so I am returned the next day

To find my top still spinning,

Still marching through its ordered precession,

It had developed a life of its own.

An etymological meme.

A simple phrase that caught someone’s fancy,

Slipped into someone’s ear

And who chose to pass it on.

I innocently spawned a mini-universe

That lived within the confines of what I said.

I gave it birth.

Now what is my responsibility

Once given a taste of what I can do?

I become like Oppenheimer.

I am inspired and appalled.

I am creator and destroyer

My lines are destined

To go round and round

Beyond my control

Beyond my power to stop them

There is nothing I can do

To cease that eternal spinning.

Save to merely to say it.

So I did.

I spun another top

In the hope that the two might collide

And create something new.

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