The Earth Turns South/The Wheel

by Clement Richardson Wood

THE WHEEL

I.
The height of a man, it trembled in the corner,
Swayed by their entrance;
Its slender spokes were fragrant
With the resinous breath of pine woods
And of the pungent oil,-
Inert, waiting the touch of life
To bring it to life.

The old grandfather brooded a moment. . . .
"I am not sure what it will do . . . not yet. . . .
Not what I want it to do."

"And that?"

"To run forever!
From early time men have sought it,—
And I . . . for years. . . . But, watch!"

He loosened a clutch . . . a gentle push. . . .
Whirr—click! Whirr—click!
Around and around, and the click as the spokes,
Reaching the height, folded and shortened,
Lengthening again as it neared the bottom—
Whirr—click! Whirr—click!
For a long time it whirled;
Then slower and slower.
Whirr-rr—
It was still.

The old man's eyelids were narrowed;
He gazed out of the window.

II.
"You will make it run forever?"

"No—I will never do it.
There was a man who stole fire from heaven;
But I shall not steal this.
Why, I've been working for years on it,
And never closer than this:
The touch of thing to thing, of wheel to socket, of body to soul,
Drags, slows the motion.
All things that live and whirl their splendid courses
Grow slowly old and still; the ardor dies,
Out of the clamor a quiet, out of the stir a rest.
What then but shift the parts,
New spokes, hinges at different angles, new sockets,
And whirl it off once more?

III.
"I think God sits and spins His wheels,
Hoping to find the perfect way. . . .
Knowing He never will:
Spinning with restless nebulæ and vagrant comets,
And the streaming shine of the Milky Way.
It will whirl down, some day.

"He tried vast changes on earth:
Warm seas, gross lizards and dragons in the air,
Rending and raging beasts;
The spokes now brown-skinned men,
Now Greek and Roman conquerors,
Now gold-hungry men of the north. . . .
He lets men tinker and potter with wheels,
Vague human brotherhoods, visions of warless earth,
Bodiless wheels-within-wheels of thought,
Drifting far out of space and time and things. . . .
Look! The wheel spins on;
New parts again. . . . I cannot see. . . . I cannot see. . . .

"Still He whirls His wheel; but His hair is graying,
His voice cracks and wheezes like mine, His wits nod. . . .
He and His wheel will some day cease,
And other wheels will shine through the spinning blackness. . . .
And some day it will stop,
And there will be no more motion, no more light,
No more darkness . . . nothing. . . . "

His voice was still, his eyelids narrowed;
He gazed out of the window.