the enso

"A Dove's First Home" by marlowe

the poem

We earn our first breath by struggle
— no pain, no gain, they say —
but what of it, this zero-sum game?
The only evidence is this empty shell, barren,
and the jagged edge where you pecked
your way to freedom from
this womb, like an ancient cave dweller,
its history already forgotten, wanting
nothing more than life itself.
Perhaps there is nothing more powerful
than this urge to breathe in open spaces.

The shell remained untouched for days,
no longer needed since a new struggle was found.
I stepped around this artifact each morning,
honoring its sacredness, noting
the thin membrane, the mortal coil now a shriveled root
no longer required to ground you.
Yes, what of it? I imagine
you have doubled in size,
often obey your parents, and will
someday return to this suburban hedge,
calculating what will be required to continue.

the enso

"The Lighthouse at Verona Beach" by marlowe

the poem

There is nothing before
there is one. We are taught
systems, each starting with zero,
ordering our lives in straight lines
that never intersect, parallel possibilities
we learn to design and then build.
We have read the ancient texts,
perhaps even tread the cobbled stones
paved by Roman armies, meandered
between Corinthian columns, or climbed
the Mayan pyramids, hoping each echoing step
brought us closer to our origins, closer
to a divinity we could not define
via mathematics. We push forward
like arrows, like trains whose brakes have failed.
As we outlined our borders, coloring
inside the lines, squares within squares
like nested dolls, taming
ourselves in our wild world, we erected
lighthouses on the shoreline
just in case we needed to know where
the beckoning waves ended.