a line nonetheless

At A Push Pin On A Map

A circle is a line,
not one so easily recognized
but a line nonetheless,
like from here to there to here again,
just the same as a line on a map
denoting where a journey began
and where it will come to an end,
at times in fact to find a new beginning,
sometimes ending up where we once were,
moving through memories, geographies
in simultaneous motion
with simultaneous emotions marking
a country mile as the crow flies
circling from time to time
over terra firma and familiar
never wondering, How did I get here,
instinctively knowing, I have already been here,
before deja vu could ever have hoped to arrive
and so here I sit at a stop along the circle,
at a push pin on a map that I placed
in this spot at some moment
only to find myself staring at it
here 25 years and so many miles later
down a line away from the same moment,
looking over my shoulder at the curve, the arc
of a line, a road stretched out behind me
unable to see where it began
as it angles away by degrees,
180 from where I am going,
360 from where I have been,
completing a perfect circle
for the moment, from a moment,
here again then gone again
and maybe even back again
somewhere down the line.