Friday, October 31, 2014

Meditations on Rope, Part 1


Another Halloween, and this time I am prepared. I take walks through the neighborhood with my head down, avoiding front yards full of gravestones and hanging effigies that stung me last year . This year, no surprises, no tears. How lightly they take death who have not felt its tragic weight. Yet is it any surprise I’ve been thinking and writing about rope the last couple weeks?

Chance*

You took chances.
So many ways you could have died
on surfboard, snowboard, motorcycle--
just one blindsiding wave, curve, car.
I worried, you scoffed, we played
our parts; you stayed intact.
Disasters I conjured
but never this torrent
swamping your soul.

You took no chances.
You could have set it up
to disappear at sea, plunge
off a cliff, but
a rope over the rafters
leaves no mistake,
no clue,
no you.

*All poetry in this blog is original work-in-progress, unless attributed to others.

No comments:

Post a Comment