A Child’s Guide to Polybius and the Dragon

The cyclical theory of history
Is bullshit, but you can understand it.
Lots of similar things turn up again,
And if you focus too fully on them,
You’ll miss the greater differences within.

It’s this way with so many things—the tide,
The moon, the year, sunspot cycles,
Ice ages, the galaxy rotating.
The world is phenomenally thorough.
It rings all the changes as it changes,

But it never isn’t changing. If you
Could only chase it, that core principle,
That dragon into its cave of sameness
Where it curls around its treasures, sleeping,
Maybe you’d catch that place where change is tamed.