September 23, 2014

equinox

 

At last night's dinner, a friend said, "I actually felt the earth tilt" and it sounded

so epic, a cosmic sea-change, a seesaw from one world to the next. And I wondered,

for a moment, how it would be to jar my life loose of its axis, break the orbit

of familiar rotation, dismantle the bricks that keep my house grounded.

Sometimes, escape wags its finger and beckons like a dare, and the brief thrill

of upheaval makes you second-guess what's calm and sure and still,

a wild summer tempting you from a mellowing fall.

I looked at my plate, fish nesting against salad, a mound of greens cradling it all.

However the planet had tipped, I hadn't noticed, the change hardly seismic in effect.

Quiet is better, I thought to myself. I'll take all the peace I have left.