The air cushions we intend to use as parachute
Have a way of turning into slippery soap bubbles
Appearing to fly until one reaches out to touch
No bubble! No hope to flay! No room for speculation!
The highly empirical experience of falling off the edge of the bed
Does not amount to much either
No rude awakenings of any kind
Just a general disappointment with life
A vague difficulty with rising above oneself!
And almost always…back to business as usual
So easy to stay tired, dissatisfied, and overworked
To never have the time to look
At the cruelty of the lie you have not told
But have not disclosed either
The lie that has now spread itself to every corner of your life
Like a drop of black ink
In a bowl of clean water – pale, pervasive, permanent
And smoothly spread
So much easier to chase a family of enchanting ducks
In their noisy tour of the lakeside
Than to preside over
The quarrel in a family of hungry squirrels
Involving a single acorn
So much easier to play in the safety of a sandbox
Why in all of elementary, intermediate and higher education
We don’t ever teach our children
That life is no one’s fault?
It just happens to happen on the edge of nothingness
As we tiptoe around pointed rocks
To avoid falling into the seemingly deep valley
And unless we pick the contradictions
That camouflage as smooth surfaces one by one
Hold them in the palm of our hands
And endure the pain of their impossibility
Our horizons will never stretch beyond the sandbox
May be someone ought to offer a course
On the ins and outs of falling
St. Louis, August 23, 2000