I t doesn’t take much to change a charmed existence and as 2012 (hopefully a much better year for the world) breathes its hot breath on this icy night, I reprise a poem about just that which originally appeared in Loch Raven Review in its Winter 2010 issue:
Oblivion Is Also the Name
of a trail, white gash
on a high shoulder
of Mt. Tecumseh, skier?s right.
At age eight, Ben flew
off the icy lip, disappeared
over a cliff while brightly
colored skiers flashed
above like tropical fish
unaware of sharks
beyond the reef. Zeus took pity
and gave me strength
to clamber down
to retrieve my boy
from precarious perch
holding tightly to an ash,
slightly stunned, teary,
goggles broken, flag-
starred racing helmet
the thin thread
between darkness
and our fortunate lives.
Was my heart beating harder
than his? How many times
each day do we near
those threads, slight
as the lightest monofilament
that even the fish cannot see?