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We move forward

because that’s the only way 

the treadmill runs

the river flows

the sand falls.

We’re all driving west

into the sunset

but do not despair

for the Earth is round

and if you go far enough one way

you come back again

probably not exactly where you started

because of planetary curvature

but there are enough new beginnings 

hatching in even the oldest of souls.

The Big Bang wasn’t one and done

it set off a seemingly infinite

number of small bangs

clanging around in molecules,

and every mathematician 

worth her chalk

knows permutations always have

an exclamation point.

A guru said:

Everything is emptiness

and yet there is still display.

That is how we are—

our core is the hum

of primordial nothingness

and yet

there is so much light

so much sound

so much light.

-Kai Cooley