Ode to Falling
I was always good at falling.
When the ligament goes wobbly,
the ankle turns along the pathway,
only fools try staying upright.
I go limp, not do it halfway.
Once upon a time, the Womb-Room–
dim light glowing, pink and pearly.
I stepped forward into nothing,
fell through softness, landed laughing
on velvet-covered foam and batting.
Once I woke to van doors springing
open, spilling me to bouncing, tumbling
down a California freeway.
“Tuck and roll,” a dim voice whispered.
“When you stop, you could be okay.”
When I reach that final falling,
let me resist the urge to fight it.
Let me shed my self completely,
gently enter that good nightfall,
tumbling deeper into mystery.
…
This poem is from the chapbook The Third Remembrance by Jayne Brown (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-third-remembrance-by-jayne-brown/
Jayne Brown is the author of My First Real Tree, a book of poems from Foothills Publications which grew out of her Master of Fine Arts in Poetry degree at San Diego State University. Brown taught writing at San Diego State and community colleges, and at Penn State Berks until retiring in 2018. She was selected as the 8th Poet Laureate of Berks County, Pennsylvania, and continues to garden, write, and live there with her partner of 35 years.
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