precipice

I'm standing on the edge of the world. Been standing here as long as I can remember. I guess we have. I wonder if you'll fall. I wonder if you'll take me with you. I wonder if I can stand waiting any longer.

I breathe in. I breathe out. I don't look over the edge. But then I do. I breathe in for you. I breathe out for her. I don't look over the edge.

She would be fine without me. I don't want to leave her, but she would. You... I'm not so sure. I breathe in. I don't look over the edge. But then I do.

Sometimes I dream. But then I watch the edge. Breathe in, breathe out. I wonder if I can stand waiting any longer. Breathe in, breathe out.

If only you'd step away from the edge...

the day after I wrote this I found this in a John O'Donohue book -

"When near the end of the day, life has drained
Out of light, and it is too soon
For the mind of night to have darkened things,

No place looks like itself, loss of outline
Makes everything look strangely in-between,
Unsure of what has been, or what might come.

In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.
In awhile it will be night, but nothing
Here seems to believe the relief of dark.

You are in this time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld.

The path you took to get here has washed out;
The way forward is still concealed from you.

'The old is not old enough to have died away;
The new is still too young to be born.'

You cannot lay claim to anything;
In this place of dusk,
Your eyes are blurred;
And there is no mirror.

Everyone else has lost sight of your heart
And you can see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.

As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow your confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.

What is being transfigured here is your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn."