Up Above
(a non Woods Poem)
Standing between the two towers Looking down A sea churning, teeming with life. Their voices no longer reach you. Just the murmur of waves cresting and falling. Owwws and Ahhs Dragons breathe. Fire breathers. They mill below. In masks Feathers Jewels Decked out and extravagant Evening gowns and Tuxedos. A party beneath an impossible canvas tent. The ringmaster announces the arrival of the tigers. They pace back and forth. No matter how tame. They are always looking for release. Above you are alone. Only air. And the smallest thread. You let your mask fall A hundred feet To the ground below. There is no net to catch you if you fall. You take a deep and shakey breathe. Step out on the wire suspended between two towers. Between success and failure. Between what was and what will be (It’s seems so far away) Between life and death. (The distance we travel here) Tenative And then a pirouette . You begin to fly. written from a prompt given by our friends Sylvia Kalina and Jozef Cain at Saccharum. The prompt was about Carnival. the musical accompaniment is a short waltz I wrote called Pirouette
What stayed with me here was the fragile distance between control and surrender.
The smallest thread. The mask falling. The movement between what was and what will be.
It feels less like performance and more like the quiet moment where fear and becoming briefly occupy the same space.
Even Icarus flew before he fell