Ours is a fragile world,
Our lives shiny glass trinkets
Hanging from strings
Held carefully in unseen hands
Slightly shaking in the currents of air
Tinkling together, sometimes musically
But most often being chipped away
Until we are broken
And merciless
Pointed shards clutter the floor
Not to have the wind would be to
Not hear the music
So no complaint is heard
But the untouched broken fragments
Remain
Giving witness to the aftermath
Of the meeting of two hardened people
Perhaps to hold the strings further apart
Would be to avoid future collision, but
No one knows how hard the winds
Of time will blow
Or how close
The ornaments will ever come again
Shall we sweep up the shattered, powdery
Pieces that once were part of us, or
Shall we let them lie?
Or just hope that Someone
Lets go of the strings
From which we hang?
Ours is a fragile world.
Our lives shiny glass trinkets
Hanging from strings
Held carefully in unseen hands
Slightly shaking in the currents of air
Tinkling together, sometimes musically
But most often being chipped away
Until we are broken
And merciless
Pointed shards clutter the floor
Not to have the wind would be to
Not hear the music
So no complaint is heard
But the untouched broken fragments
Remain
Giving witness to the aftermath
Of the meeting of two hardened people
Perhaps to hold the strings further apart
Would be to avoid future collision, but
No one knows how hard the winds
Of time will blow
Or how close
The ornaments will ever come again
Shall we sweep up the shattered, powdery
Pieces that once were part of us, or
Shall we let them lie?
Or just hope that Someone
Lets go of the strings
From which we hang?
Ours is a fragile world.
This is the first of Wil’s poems to ever be published; it was printed on p.50 of a 2000 poetry anthology called “Secret Hiding Places” (find this book).
This is how the poem appeard on page 50 of the 2000 book Secret Hiding Places. Click here to see it larger.
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