Lacuna

So thanks to my current Artist's Way group, I have a new resolve to write a poem a week.  We'll see how long that goes. :^)

I am midway through my second Master's degree, which I'm also doing while working full-time.  Every Labor Day is an opportunity for me to contemplate, again, what I'm getting ready to do to myself.  This is a poem about that.

Lacuna

This is the breath you take
before the wave comes crashing over you.
Before you're lost inside it,
tumbling, clawing with
all limbs to find the ground.

This is the moment where
you contemplate the drop
between you and the canyon bottom,
watching toy trees and houses,
bones already aching
at the thought of the descent.

This is the pause you make
before boarding the plane,
or the bus, or the train,
or the bike, or the car,
assessing the scenarios of sudden death
and choosing to believe
or not.

Where something in you cries
not again, not again,
and something else answers
yes,
this is how we know we're alive.