Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

by David Parkinson (08/30/06).

A coconut never cracked so cleanly
or so quietly as our world
breaking in two. No warning,
no distant rumble intimating a storm;
just a sudden calamity, out of the blue.

Us on opposite sides, poles apart
cut off in mid-sentence,
trying to make some sense
of humdrum, everyday things,
platitudes we hadn’t recognized
as disenchantment.

Now we have to make a choice, consider
a momentous unknown leap. We have hindsight
and a second chance to give each other
a second glance (and pray)
for surefootedness finding the way, back
to how and where we first began.

DAVID PARKINSON

“Fault Lines” appears in Clutching at Straws, Ra Press, 2005.