The Maze

Compelled and carrying out a strange instruction,
Vital, timeless, tangible as a thread,
I was tracing the spiral nebula in my head.
When I think of it now,
I remember the path frozen
And how, on the inside edge of a bowed skate,
I arrived at the heart of the maze in a clean sweep.
Reached le ciel in a long unbroken spiral.
Yet the truth of the matter escapes:
There is no returning beyond the sudden narrowing of the curve,
Eye of the nautilus, the ram's horn,
Memory fails me at every try,
I follow the spiralling pathway over and over,
Run, hoping to pass that place on the sharpening turn,
To grow small then small,
Smaller still, and enter the maze's vanish point,
A spark extinquished.

P.K. Page

Still Waters: The Poetry of P.K. Page by Donald Winkler, National Film Board of Canada