Finding My Balance

I’m tilting this way and that. It happens. Life has narrowed so I get to feel the walls allowing my fingers to touch the margins. What margins? I swing from silly to serious, still evolving in soft clay. The mudpuddle of words. The blurt of my heart. From the contrarian No and Nor in my name to the OM. The long stare, the blank ahead and faded album I clutch. What if I fall? Let it be like petals of the orchid which regenerate. What if I lift? Carried away by a poem in my folder marked Poem by Others. Extend my reach? The whole ball of wax. It’s a new ball game. I don’t care if I never come back. Only for an hour or two like one of those paddles with a red ball attached. Now there is Donald, the enormous dartboard in my head I cannot stop targeting. Yes, you can. No, I can’t. He has helped me define whom I hope I have never been. Thank you for that Donald, now please leave. I need a deep draft of good air. There is wind in the word window visible now in the sway of trees. In my next incarnation I want to know the names of trees. Not for mastery; only as a salutation. Early on they were called 2^nd base or the goal line. Now I can commune with the folds of eucalyptus bark or the reptilian roots of old-growth ficus slithering. In summer months friend Dean and I get carried away in conversation under the umbrella of an ash tree with its winged yellow leaves. The hardwood is used to make baseball bats and guitars. I find a balance between these two.