Don’t even think about treading on
That tempting little hose of soft clear ….. plastic lying on the floor
There are plenty enough ways to
Incur my wrath without committing
That most heinous act of barbarism.
Mind your step, you fool, watch
Where you put those uncoordinated ….. blobs you call your feet.
Its not just the punishment
That should prompt alertness on
Your part, nor even humanitarian
Compassion to guide your steps aright.
But think on this, the balance
Of all the laws of physics and the
Cosmic glue that holds the
Universe together, lie at risk
Of total disintegration at
The touch of toe on tube.
Most like an arch—an entrance which upholds
and shores the stone-crush up the air like lace.
Mass made idea, and idea held in place.
A lock in time. Inside half-heaven unfolds.
Most like an arch—two weaknesses that lean
into a strength. Two fallings become firm.
Two joined abeyances become a term
naming the fact that teaches fact to mean.
Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is,
what’s strong and separate falters. All I do
at piling stone on stone apart from you
is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss
I am no more than upright and unset.
It is by falling in and in we make
the all-bearing point, for one another’s sake,
in faultless failing, raised by our own weight.
The Collected Poems of John Ciardi (University of Arkansas Press, 1997)
6 years after our first date and I wouldn’t change a thing.
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