Tautologies of Summer
By Lorna Crozier

Every morning there are sparrows
and rhubarb leaves. Somewhere
a heron mimics shadows

while desire moves
just below the surface.
In spite of pain

desire repeats itself
again and again
like the snake who

looking for its lost skin
traces its shape in the sand
simply by moving forward.

This is a beautiful poem. Let’s take a look at Big Franks’s travesty or homage to this. It's the repetition that captures Big Frank's imagination. It's entitled:

Whirl
by Big Frank Dickinson

Every whirl brings continuance
and duration. Under
us the earth shines

like a strobe light;
in the fullness of time
a wink at eternity.

Squirrels climb to descend
to repeat again and again.
Hawks to the sky and down.
The lungs breathe in and out.

We turn on our beds;
our great expectations
followed by the unexpected,
with revisions of greatness.

Turn, turn turn;
always the same
even when not.

For every deviation,
for every ending,
for every abnormality

is followed eventually
by its own known beginning,
returning again.

In this way we gain
the only way to
measure our days.