Howard F. Stein
A Dot’s Journey
First a thought,
Then a dot
With a circle
Faintly in mind.
The slightest line
Emerges from the dot,
Hesitates, its pseudopod
Ventures a tiny step,
Stops, extends but a hint more,
Begins to shape
Into a curve that
Turns slightly inward,
Halts once more before advancing—
Recognizes where
It is headed only
Upon arrival, followed
By the next amoebic
Dare of advance and curve—
Direction revealed
Only retrospectively—
Until the dot
Meets and reunites
With itself,
Quest and destiny
A circle, the first thought
At last complete.
—Submitted on 02/03/2021
Howard F. Stein is the author of Presence: Poems from Ghost Ranch (Golden Word Books, 2020), Centre and Circumference (MindMend Publishing Co., 2018), and other poetry collections. A professor emeritus at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Stein lives in Oklahoma City.
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Editor’s Note: The series title A River Sings is borrowed from “On the Pulse of Morning,” the poem read by Maya Angelou at the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1993.
