Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel;
Like a snowball down a mountain or a carnival balloon, like a caroussel that's turning, running rings around the moon;
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping,
Past the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space;
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind;
Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
, Down a hollow to a cave,
Where the sun has never shone;
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half-forgotten dream or the ripples from a pebble,
Someone tosses in a stream;
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping,
Past the minutes on its face and the world is like an apple whirling silently in space; like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind; keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head;
Why did summer go so quickly?
Las it something that I said?
Lovers walk along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand;
Was the sound of distant drumming; just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song half-remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over,
Were you suddenly aware,
That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of your hair?
Like a circle in a spiral;
Like a wheel within a wheel,
Never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel;
As the images unwind like the circles
That you find in the windmills of your mind.