A marble clicks across the space between hardwood boards

A child’s finger flicks it across the floor

Inside

Its intricate whorls and swirls

Flash in a tiny bit of sun

Such a small motion

Can make all the difference.

Surrendering its tiny bits of gravity

Losing control, rolling, all over the floor

Fingers drop one marble after another

Down the marble-tower in a mad shower

Some get stuck along the way, some spin in the curlicues and tunnels

Whirl down miniature black holes and pass through slides

Clinking and chattering, hailing and pattering

Reflection in a marble

Reflection in a steady eye

Watching the marbles fall

One thing is certain—

They all lie still at the bottom and grow silent.

It’s hard to say for sure where one marble falls in and another falls out

So many marbles, so little time—

Like people on the stage of life

Forever whirling in and out of their dress of breath.

The Earth

One cosmic marble thrown from God’s bag

Whirling around the sun

Three hundred sixty-five revolutions per one sun-revolution.

How do we say for sure?

Are other universes calling?

My eyes are like marbles beginning their uncertain journey

At the whim of gravity and the turn of a divine hand.

All the rolling and clashing and pattering

Of seven billion marbles, maybe more

Never knowing where they’re going—

Running forever till their slowing.

Nobody can see inside my clear marble heart

The silent screams and the unseen joys that were there from the start

People are funny

They’re just like marbles

A marble may contain a soul, a world, even a universe

But one thing is certain—

One marble can’t know another.

We’re all trapped inside ourselves,

Never thinking that we are together

Bleeding marbles, moonlit marbles

Gutter marbles, golden marbles—

We all are the same

All the same.

The flick of a marble, such a small motion

Can make all the difference.