The Jagged Edge

right at my feet it broke
	the darkness, and one half
	weight was suspended
over the void that seeped
	into bright space with
trailings and leavings,
endings of the shadow -

and the other half was
	sound on dry land, terra
	firma to the soul, anchored
	there still as a swaying
tree - and the light was
a starburst overhead
and the green grew like
	a tide crossing the plain

and so I existed between
	the twain - all  my life,
	the stretching black so
	easy to topple in to
soundlessness and the long
unending fall, yet the
solid foot held me
stuck to the light that
would not let me go - 

and the movings, the
	quickenings, the passing
	colours and the journeys
	that held me in their
rails, their arms, all the
clash of sights and sounds
I saw, were me, were
my time.

and yet the collision came,
	of dark and light
	of solid, and no substance
	of noise and silence
	of movement and nothing

and the flight held me there
between them, the
tension of my life like
	a lodestone, like
	a coiled spring
and they pulled me
	in two - always - the
dark and the bright twin.
The Teetering Woman
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