Circles Poem Novels & Stories

Her branches shift in the breeze like a woman turning in her sleep, dreaming of better worlds. Three bonds sealed. One left to weave the circle whole. We walk back slowly through the silvered grass, fingers entwined, the air between us humming with the soft promise of dawn.

The stars are falling. And she is learning. Dax is holding me. The Circle is strong. And love is patient. We will wait. As long as it takes. --

“Still here. And still not pretending we know when the hard nights end.” At sixty minutes the music stopped. Theo came down, glanced once at the calendar, and sat on the bottom step. “It’s still there,” he said. “Yes,” Lyra said. “I’m not going to be okay just because there’s a circle on a page.” “I know,” Dimitri said. “The circle is a place to look. Not a cure.” Theo nodded once. “Day stays empty.” “Day stays empty.” “Night stays free.” “Night stays free.”

She slowly made it into a perfect circle and the glow slowly turned green as the material solidified with a design in the middle that looked like two open squares that spiraled in on themselves three times yet they never touched. Placing a hand on top of the solid circle she lifted her hand slowly upwards and the circle split into two identical circles. Waiting for the second one to finish solidifying she help her other hand out to the group of Males. Offering the circle to the Baffled group when one from the back steps forward and gently picks it up.

And everywhere, everywhere, there was light. "The circle has spread," I said. "It's covering everything." "How is that possible?" Marcus asked. "How can one circle cover so much?" "Because it's not just one circle anymore," I said. "It's the heart of the world. It's the light that was always there, waiting to be found." We stood on the ridge, looking out at the world. It was beautiful. It was alive. It was ours. "We need to go back," Silas said. "We need to tell the others."

One more. "The masquerade repeats," she said. "History circles. You've been living in a circle since before you were born. The community in the tunnels in 1666, and now you, and the children after you. Each time the circle is a little wider." She found his hand beside her on the blanket and put her fingers over it. His hand was warm. It was very warm. She held onto that warmth the way she had been holding onto the sound of his breathing, the way she held onto the realness of things when everything else was dissolving into vision. "That's not tragedy. That's how things change. Slowly. In circles that expand."

It considered the words. Then quietly asked, "Isn't it?" Silence answered. Not because no one wished to speak. Because none of them knew. Ama looked around. She saw the people. Each unique. Each different. Yet standing together. She looked at the tree. Every leaf had its own shape. Yet they all belonged to one trunk. A memory surfaced. The Gardener drawing a circle in the soil. "Choose where it begins." The circle had never truly been divided. Only perceived differently.

Fabian hit the floor like a dog face-planting in the dirt, groaning in pain. His lackey, Chester, grabbed a chair and swung it at me after seeing him getting hit. I dodged to the side, kicked him hard in the butt, and sent him crashing into the pile of wreaths. Fabian scrambled up from the ground with his fleshy face twisted in fury. “Are you tired of living, Mattie? Do you have any idea where the Jeffersons stand in Cirrus? Even having ten lives would not save you!” I curled my lips. There weren’t many people in this world who could take my life.

“That’s his work.” On the way back, the forest made us smaller in the way it does when it is teaching you perspective you didn’t ask for. The Holdfast roofs appeared like knees under a blanket. Smoke tried to be a straight line and failed. The yard was less crowded, but the kind of quiet that had replaced the crowd was louder than noise. Because in the center of the circle, on the packed dirt where our breath still lived, someone had drawn a mark. Not a crescent. Not the kind the necklace had burned in memory on my skin. Not mine.

And an old woman smiled as she offered me tea, saying, “We carry each other. Always.” Without knowing it, they lived the Ninth Flame. 3. The Circle Lives On Each month, I received a letter from Elira delivered by messenger birds trained in the northern cliffs. She wrote of new saplings, of Spiral poetry readings, of Crescent and Hollow youth falling in love at peacekeeper schools. She ended every letter the same way: “Still weaving, still walking, still watching the sky.” I never replied. But I lit a lantern at dusk, knowing she’d see it on the horizon.