This is Victoria Falls. Wiki says: Victoria Falls (or Mosi-oa-Tunya, or Tokaleya Tonga: the Smoke that Thunders) is a waterfall in southern Africa on the Zambezi River at the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. The man stands on an edge that holds back a swimming hole where one can safely bathe close to the edge. Images of people in various poses are often taken right here.
Looking For The Edge
That's the moment, the instant
I am looking for-
The time just before
it all collapses into
normal business,
stuff as freaking usual
(so we say it, drowned
as we are in dream)-
I am looking for
the crack in things, finely wrought
by the voice of God
whispering nothing
in any particular
and touching the world
so, to make us go.
Yes, that's really really it.
I've been there before
but just that one time.
August 19, 2013 8:40 AM
That is something to remember: Looking for the edge is really really really not safe!!
ReplyDeleteAnd Kudos to Jules Gibbs, whose poem "Brute Dictation" on Verse Daily (http://www.versedaily.org/2013/brutedictation.shtml)
prompted me to write my own.
Yes...once is enough.
ReplyDeleteMy insides disagreed with you. My hope disagreed. One is by far not enough. My behavior turned strange as I tried to recapture that difference and own it. It set the trajectory of my life for many years as I directly chased what I thought I must recapture. It became in short obsession. My memory was pale and useless, worse because while the vision communicates directly to others when present, the memory does not cross the boundary of blood and skin. I was left with too little.
DeleteWhile I am satisfied now with how it all went, others would say I paid a terrible price. While I feel well placed in my soul after all this work, I may not do that well in the end stages of my life.
It cost me children. I have none. It cost me any one of several possible careers while turning me into an artisan of sorts. I do not marry well. I am too singular. All of this is seived through that one moment which had to be enough because repetition was beyond my power and skill.
However, on the other side, a repeat may have killed me outright. It is said that to look on the face of God is to die. As for me that one time, I am sure I was cocooned in God's shekinah power, in deliberate protection. Even so, I went quite insane for several years, slowly recovering my balance. It's too big.
I think that is my point, Christopher. How many times does one need to slide into the vortex of seeming annihilation before one learns.
DeleteOne would hope one more than enough. Which was the point of my instinctual disagreement. Enough is not enough. The true satiation is the rich flavor of a little bit more.
DeleteOf course you are holding discussion with a full blown alcoholic even if he is thirty years sober. Gluttony is possibly an issue. :D
(what can i say other than i choose the dangerous place. is there a rightly or wrongly? i choose because the face, perhaps what i have seen veiled enough to spare me, is what i desire. it is what my longing is born of. i think you too.)
ReplyDeletexo
erin
I without question and unreservedly love you, Erin.
Deletei love you too, christopher)))))you are such a part of my coming to this place))))
ReplyDelete