Dame Gravity

Dame Gravity As a dear friend battles nocturnal EMT home invasions, fainting spells, falls, forgetfulness, fading like a plucked peony my health guilt increases-- what right have I to two legs that hold me (today) while others fold under the impact of an invisible wrecking ball, collapsing into rubble? Treachery beneath innocent snow hid black ice last March, when my darling slipped, fell backwards. Knifing pain trapped him for a month in the recliner, unable to get in or out of a bed. The therapy pool holds our motley shimmering wreckage-- aging apples bobbing up and down; watery reflections quiver, distort all we were and are. In the weekly T'ai Chi class we breathe, spread our “White Crane” wings, aspiring to float over the carpeted pond; after class, I push through the underbrush of jackets, take up my pink cane to exit, remembering how once I soared so high that earth seemed distant, and small below. Dame Gravity has her say; she rules all, save imagining; our bodies bow, obey. --Peggy Brightman (c) June 2018