Looking across to Bridal Veil Falls,
You feel your weight’s
Free will against the fence
Urging you outward into that immense
Absence of panorama which appalls
The same mind it exhilarates.
Impossible to calculate the stretch
From here to there”
That far sunwall of cliff”
And wonder how long you would wonder if
That empty impulse undertook to fetch
You forth into the mindless air.
And a butterfly floats past you to commit
Precisely this.
You very nearly gasp
And fling your hand out in a desperate grasp,
For one distracted second sure that it
Will plummet into that abyss.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Wrongness of Human Death
Decay and death seem built into the structure of physical creation. Even if there could be a…
Climbing and Death
During the last year or so, I’ve worked on a memoir. The topic is my youth spent…
Recovering the University’s Soul
The contemporary university is widely acknowledged to be in crisis. Loss of public confidence, relentless tuition increases,…
