Elliptical’s Not the Half of It

We return to this vexed problem
We’ve been returning to for years—

It keeps adding, but it never
Overflows, keeps vanishing but

Is always exactly as full.
The mathematicians prefer

To argue for conservation—
What’s lost has just been converted

To what’s added. It’s all conserved.
And yet, if it’s never the same,

There’s real loss in its patternings,
And that novelty’s a real gain.

This goes round and round, returning
While never coming back again.