Magpie Fri . . . day.

  

Squint

Sometimes I want to see --

my eyes crystal balls

my world a fortune cookie

split wide and spilling its ribbons

of truth across my plate

See past the dark door

its slim beckoning finger of light

an arrow across my threshold

its eyes already accustomed

to the brightness of what comes

Look a crooked line

a periscope, a trick of time

taking the corners at a run

no blink, no flinch

my steady gaze

straight ahead and knowing

where I'll go next

--smh

This poem is a Magpie Tale.  I loved this prompt!

If it speaks to you as well, write your own and share it with the class.

I think it grabbed me because 

many things in my life seem precarious right now.  

Things always are, of course, 

only sometimes we see the edge of the cliff 

we walk along much more clearly.

There was a tragic story in the paper yesterday about a runner who hopped over a cement barricade and fell to his death.  He was the victim of an optical illusion -- it appeared that the trail continued on the other side, but that was another part of the trail.  He could not see the gap with the 25 foot drop.  When his mother dropped him off for his run, he said, "Let me out here.  I know where I am."

I know where I am, too.  

And the trick is to keep running, because running is the only way forward.

But there are times when I wonder what I can't see.

Run, Susan, run,  

but mind the gap.