Do I Dare Myself To Write This Poem?


Do I dare myself to write this poem,

To commit these feelings to word spread on paper
Open and no longer hidden
In the swirling of a solitary mind.

Let the blades of the fan stop moving;
Pull out the plug, long enough, to allow this with her.

Do I dare to take the risk of looking down from this great height

Knowing that every time I have looked before from this room

Soon after the view has turned into crushed broken and awkward remains

Jutting from the earth like an ancient ruin.

I write because I have dared myself

Like a child to another

Not to step on the crack,

I write because it is fall now and the leaves are turning yet again on the trees

Turning to reds yellow ashes and seed.

I write because I could have died in my feverish sleep this past week but I lived and she lived with me

The risk too great for her not to come.
So I prepare my wetsuit to dive one more time into this wreck

No longer willing to be a pawn

In what has become a parrot-like garden game

On a plastic card table

A fable,

A wild horse corralled in a stable.

~ November, 1983