on the knife edge

 

control is illusion

these days, and nights,

it feels like we cautiously

work our way forward

as if on a knife-edge,

never quite trusting

that our footing is secure enough,

we feel the pull of each abyss

that looms before us,

almost taunting us

that control is but an illusion,

an invisible virus waits to pounce

if we’re unlucky or incautious,

disturbed fellow citizens are so afraid

their fear trumps their rationality

and the body politic shakes from their fever,

and, as if the above is not enough,

small and large other tragedies also lie in wait:

our health, the health of those we love,

of those we know,

plus the common failures inherent in work,

in relationship, in the dark currents within us

that the night’s loss of control

reminds us are just behind, before,

below our sureness,

life is all about the knife edge,

with fear and death 

as close by as the next moment,

it will be so easy to slip, 

and fall.

by Henry H. Walker

January 15, ‘21