The Same Old Problem With Change

Repetition is
The secret clock that tricks us
Into thinking we’re looking

At true recurrence
When we’re being treated to
Displays of subtlest changes.

In this dim habitat, this
Twilight of the general
Consciousness, some form

Of changing process remains,
Wrote William James. What remains
If what remains is just change?

Change is both the everything
And the nothing everything
Arises from and becomes.

Every equivalency
Is false equivalency
But some falsehoods are still

More equivalent
Than others. There’s our twilight,
The fetch in the shades of clocks

And measures of every kind.
There is no no change,
But somehow there can be more

By comparison, or less.
Life regulates its mayhem
By means of comparisons

And human life generates
All culture’s complications
Thanks to countable measures

That count on selectively
Identifying
And ignoring more minor

Differences, then paring them
Down in pursuit of even
More minor differences

Approaching no change
By means of microscopy,
But how do we manage this?

We ferret out the difference
Our senses would never find
With prosthetic instruments,

But we still don’t understand
What is the smallest
Difference possible, nor
What makes moments more the same.