No, Yeats

the center holds
eternal eye
of the hurricane
vortex of the maelstrom
infinite calm
seen only in the gyre
the movement around it
sensed, uncontrolled
feared and called random
passion and conviction
pull reason round
a drunken spiral
the blood is in the turning
not in the pregnant
limpid shape of silence
compassed by jeweled fractals
and diamonds of distant suns
it is Sekhmet
who rises in the desert
head of a lion
body of a woman
and strides toward Bethlehem
anger in one hand
aloes in the other

Reprinted with permission from the book, Anger and Aloes, a collection of poems written by Janet M. Taliaferro.
Copyright © 2006, Janet M. Taliaferro.

Photo Source: Crystalinks, William Butler Yeats, Gyres and Geometry

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Janet Taliaferro is a graduate of Southern Methodist University and holds a Master’s Degree in Creative Studies from the University of Central Oklahoma, where she received the Geoffrey Bocca Memorial Award for graduate writing. Her novel, A Sky for Arcadia, was a finalist in the 2002 Oklahoma Center for the Book Award. She has published short stories and poems in The Northern Virginia Review, New Plaines Review, Deep Fork Anthology, Dream Quarterly International and Tight. She lives in Virginia but has been a summer resident of Wisconsin since she was eight years old. She is a member of American Independent Writers and Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.

[Poetry Break Editor Note]