Repetition

'Round and 'round the circle goes,
Where it stops, nobody knows...

I

Why won't I tell you?
Why won't you learn?
Why must my life this way turn?
Reasons you give me--none, alas!
How can I give what you won't receive?
Do I mean so little?

You wish to know what ails me so,
But e'en then you no listen;
I have ever been but a child to you.
And you ask
Where did that child go?

But I ask,
When was that child?

She died a long time ago.
Far, far too long.

II

I tell you nothing; nothing I give.
What chance for trust is there?
True--how can you believe
The honesty you do not see?

I say nothing,
So nothing you hear.

I tell not all the story, e'en when you ask;
Stubborn are we ('twas your gift to me),
And I learned long, long ago:
You see what you wish,
No matter what I show.

So I am what you want to see--
This thing that's me and not me.

I am weak; I gave up;
I no longer try.

III

We beat against the shining wall--
Unchanging and knowing not why;
I see it--I know it!
But I cannot move it.

Steadfast it remains, keeping us going
And going
And going.

If the dam is broken, the water will spill,
But one of us must crack;
The rock thrown first, the silence broken--

I see no weakness in this black glass.

Alas!