The Staff of Hermes

The snake condenses into dance
The cybernetic moral: all advance
Is oscillation. Serpentines entrance
Us from our straight line (that lance
Of rude extension) to the chance
Of wending; the sway and stance
Of willow; the ghost romance
Of history and happenstance.
Look close; feel the glance
Of every snakeflesh loop enhance
Itself with kinesthetic circumstance
That twines the serpent from askance
To helical caduceus; that healing prance
Of Tao upon our will: that dance.

Joe Wrobel