Freshman Poem of the Week

Evolution of a Poem :: Part 2


The Hand Reaches Down

Hanging.
Feet flail, fail to find purchase
In the emptiness beneath.
Harder to breathe.

Fingers dig in to the cold, rocky ledge
Sweat and blood mix in slipping palms
Run in torrents down shaking arms
The earth responds in kind
A rain of rock and clay
The taste of fresh blood
Bloodshot eyes made blind
Too weak to hold

The raging waters
The fiery lava
The black abyss below
Hard to refuse

Cliff tops convulse
Shoulders give way
Ligament split from bone
Fresh waves of pain
Too hard to hold

Through the falling debris
A vision
The Hand that reaches down
A Friend planted on solid ground
Too easy to choose

The cliff’s edge shakes, cracks, crumbles
Breaks
Silence
Floating
Pain explodes
Broken hands again find hold
Heart beats and dirt fill my ears
Loud and fast

The Hand remains, just within a lunging grasp
What makes me so afraid to let go
To unclench slipping fingers
And reach
Stretch up for the Hand?

Somehow it’s reasonable
Everything within me would rather cling to death
The risk Life

But the Hand reaches farther down
And when my ledge finally breaks away
When my grip fails
When I panic
Flailing about in the empty, unforgiving air
Falling
Ignoring still the Hand
He pulls me up by the heart.