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.
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2006.
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