Zeno of Elea

by Michael Sandler

By modern calculus, his paradoxes have long
been disproven and, in the arena of slings
and arrows, the refutation appears flawless.
But when I look beyond Achilles and the tortoise,
considering the distance from me to you,
he seems germane, and you endlessly removed.

Might he counsel me to meet you half way?
And then half way again, and again? My dismay
races when told each journey, like any line,
has an infinite number of points, that no discipline
can encompass them all. I suppose that is our quandary:
how to live in our own heads—with oblivion—solitaries…

You interrupt and propose we take a leap
beyond measurement. The moment seems ripe,
perhaps launched from a sincerity in your smile,
and I imagine being airborne, no hesitation, no guile,
our inching self-concern completely overtaken
and us wondering if the Greek had been mistaken.