(The pic above is
actually my parking lot with a gorgeous sunset. This poem is
a Sestina. This is one of a triptych--three sestinas in this case
that go together....)
BALANCE
It's easier to escape into a
dead past than to walk the voluminous
fence that separates his life from
yours, to keep a precarious
balance while you long for the solid
feel of arms around you, a caress in the
night.
The most longing times are at
night, but when you recall the
past, it's a means of
disarming a present -- that looks like a
fencing match, a means of getting your
balance. The past may be dead.
But it's yours.
And you can remember all of
your hol-i-days: a canoe trip
down a river at night . . . . . . learning to stand on one
foot . . . balancing your checkbook . . . looking
beautiful . . . and walking past a string of men sitting on a
fence showing you their flexed
arms.
. . . The first time he took
you in his arms, when maybe he loved
you some time before the
construction of fences . . . some time before you got lost
at night . . . some time when you had no
past together . . . when all seemed
in balance.
But the scales
unbalanced. Words turned into arms
-- firing up the aching
past you'd divorced when you left
your father's house . . . wounds
reopened in the night -- until you had to build a
fence
to protect yourself, a
fence built high and straight, loigs
balanced. And here you are: alone in the
night with only your own
arms to surround
you. Not much to look at in the
dying past.
Yet armed with the
past You pull back from the
fence Balanced for a moment at
midnight