Thursday, December 30, 2010

Balance

Balance

What is standing across from me
on the other end of my seesaw

to prevent me from catapulting
into the sky. Or smashing down

through the floorboards, splinters
floating up like volcanic ash.

What is my counterweight, and
what body does it borrow when

it manifests itself to me. Does it
jump on and off, rattle my stance

by jiggling a foot. How steady is
the ground, right now. On a scale

of Richter-registered tremors to
Mount Sinai composure, where

is this patch of planet. Dear deity
of gravity, I feel there is something

between us. Thank you for sharing
this fulcrum so very graciously.

8 comments

  1. gosh... so very many mental images form here for me. Bizarrely (i don't know maybe I'm losing it?) the first few paragraphs felt like I was reading a woman, desperately yearning or wanting for unborn children to whom she cannot get pregnant to be there...probably random but something about it triggered me.

    fulcrum is a gorgeous word too... isn't it?

    Gorgeous hannah, as usual..

    thea.
    xx

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  2. I, too, am grateful to whatever (or whoever) is opposite you on the seesaw, aptly also called teeter-totter (not by New Yorkers, for sure). But the fact that you sense there IS something giving you balance is most reassuring. Maybe YOU are your own counterweight, watching you, smiling, protecting, reassuring, loving.

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  3. Another little diamond of sharp focus and wit.

    Here are my two favourite pronouncements on balance:

    I balanced all, brought all to mind,
    The years to come seemed waste of breath,
    A waste of breath the years behind,
    In balance with this life, this death.
    W.B.Yeats

    In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.
    Patti Smith

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  4. "Dear deity of gravity, I feel there is something between us."

    I love that line.

    Happy New Year Hannah!

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  5. I went back to my grade school playground, quite happily! xx

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  6. Your diction is as fluid as it is succinct. How do you DO that? :)
    My fave part:

    "On a scale

    of Richter-registered tremors to
    Mount Sinai composure, where

    is this patch of planet."

    PS: Happy almost New Year! Can't believe 2011 is nearly here.

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  7. lovely....so glad the image called forth words

    Siobhan

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