T I M E I S A D O N U T

"Time is a donut, it goes round

and around," or so a friend once said

upon waking up after passing out

from eating too much space cake.

I asked him about it later --

if he remembered saying it.

Shocked by my question, he said "No"

and avoided me for years.

But I swear I'm not lying. My memory

may no longer be an elephant

but one doesn't forget such a thing.

Time as a donut -- tell me, could you?

But is time really a donut?

Of course not, this is utter nonsense.

Time is no pastry, it’s an arrow -- 

flying a straight line, kamikaze to the end. 

But where does it go, this arrow?

What is its purpose if it has none?

Doesn’t it ever wish to stop

to eat some space cake for the ride?

Imagine travelling through time if time

were a donut -- a continuum of junk food

wrapped around the very fabric of space,

spinning, pirouetting,

like a lazy susan of galactic Swiss rolls,

the rings of Saturn, Cheezels and bagels,

a cosmic hula hoop of pizzas and pancakes,

together forever on a universal sushi train.

Chrono-donut, where are you heading?

You leave me today for the unknown

but I know

you’ll come back again.

For what is time

if not day and night dervishing

in an endless loop of

variations of the same?

Like leftovers recycled through

been theres and done thats,

is not our history just history repeating

under a different name?

O donut of time, where are you

leading us?

Your extinction, my evolution.

Your transcendence, my liberation.

We live and die and live again as one

in this Ouroboros cartwheel of existence.

Back towards the end;

to the final bite of beginning.

We live and die and live once again.

“Time is a donut,” I heard him say.

Until there are no more donuts.

Only crumbs for the ants.

*

And so it was  that centuries passed

before my friend friended me again.

And knowing better, I never asked

about the donut incident again.

Still I never forgot what he said

that time though he may deny it.

So today I'm baking him

a space cake.

For it's true,

what he said:

"Time is a donut.

It goes round and around."

For here we are once more,

together forever in the donut of time.

5 January 2016