The Wheel and Helm
Alireza Bemanian • Odyssey
تا به مستوفِ عذارش جثه در، مکنون منش حنانه نیست
Chapter V — epigraph
© Alireza Bemanian / بمانیان
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The wheel, helm, the tiller,
discerned avenues, abandoned fields,
grasp of the course, comprehending schemes,
the streams and cascades, torrents and brooks.
Devotees and disciples, advocates and believers,
the saddle, the water, contents and simmers,
encircle and enfold, succumb and surmise,
reveries to reach, oceans to brim.
Reservoirs and basins, the ponds and the lakes
the larger and harsher, the shifts and motions,
the calmer and soother, the pavements and pathways,
stretch the measures, adhere the notions.
While, drawbacks and snags, the domes and arches,
wailings and laments, the moans and whimpers,
make the move sheer, change demands adhere,
durations and lengths, certainty and faith,
snarl and sneer, to rumble and roar.
Still, the burdens, consignments and loads,
make it to aim and target, do pursue the conceals,
destiny, vocation, the fate and fortune,
reshape shall be certain, assured, and posed farther.
The birds chirp, flowers bloom,
the shine, patina, and gloss,
promises are spread, convictions extend,
the joy to remain, the zeal and ardor,
oceans to fulfill, surmises to conject.
The zests and kernels, gustoes and savors,
foresee the feats, ferment the remnants,
confess and declare, further to foretell,
the buds and offshoots, stand the hurdles.
Cupolas and vaults, cover the course,
the whole is sustained, the life is pertained,
and then, the core and the hub, transpose, spread,
the feast and banquet, have made it to spare.
Alireza Bemanian • January 10, 2026 • © www.bemanian.com
Themes & Interpretations
Wheel and Helm as Complementary Navigation
The title holds together two modes of motion ordinarily treated as opposites: the circular/orbital (pattern, return, cycle — the wheel’s rotation) and the linear/directed (will, agency, forward progress — the helm’s steering). Neither alone constitutes navigation. The wheel without the helm is endless return without destination; the helm without the wheel is directionless forward motion without the wisdom of recurrence. Together they name the complete navigator.
Obstacle Becomes Shelter: Architectural Transformation
The same structural forms — domes and arches (stanza 4) alongside wailing and lament, cupolas and vaults (stanza 8) covering and protecting the whole — trace the poem’s deepest argument. The navigator does not escape the architecture of obstruction; the navigator passes through it and stands beneath the same arches, now transformed into a vault of belonging. Obstacle and shelter are made of the same material; what differs is the navigator’s position.
Burden as Directional Instrument
“The burdens, consignments and loads, make it to aim and target” — one of the poem’s most precise reversals of conventional expectation. Weight is normally experienced as impediment; here, weight provides the precision that gives the navigator’s aim its certainty. The loads are not resisted or overcome; they are the very forces that direct the navigation toward what is hidden and worth pursuing. This is a physics of intentionality: the heavier the load, the more precisely it falls toward its target.
Water Progression: Aspiration to Fulfillment
The poem’s water moves in scale and aspiration: streams, cascades, torrents, and brooks in stanza 1 give way to reservoirs, basins, ponds, and lakes in stanza 3. The poem twice reaches toward the ocean — “oceans to brim” in stanza 2 as aspiration, “oceans to fulfill” in stanza 6 as achievement. What was aspired to in stanza 2 is achieved in stanza 6, and the remaining stanzas live in the field that fulfillment opens.
The Feast: Navigation’s Natural Culmination
“The feast and banquet, have made it to spare” — the surplus is the measure of the arrival, the natural consequence of navigation that has proceeded with the right instruments, through the right obstacles, toward the aimed-for destination. The feast is not reward for navigation but its natural culmination. The destination becomes a field, not a dot: “the core and the hub, transpose, spread” — arrival is not stopping but spreading.