A Simple Walk - Dec 22 2024

 

A Simple Walk

Dec 22 2024

Bad ice

along a narrow twisting trail.

that froze unevenly.

Some slippery bits

are thinly dusted

with freshly fallen snow,

while patches of slick black ice

hide out,

lurking

like hair-trigger traps

for unwary passers-by.

The slip is magnificent,

running in place

cartoonishly flailing

ballistically doing the splits;

while the fall

is quicker than pain

travels from ass to brain

and consciousness.

No time for life to flash;

just the hard immovable ground

and the instantaneous stop

of every pound, ounce, and gram

of your brittle mass

under gravity,

accelerating hard.

The quickness stuns you.

The impact

is shockingly abrupt.

You lie there

dazed, disoriented, disgusted,

assessing the damage

and hoping for the best.

A simple walk

beside the river

on a night like any other.

Yet in a warm winter

that goes from freeze to thaw and back again

you never saw it coming.

When the laws of physics

govern a falling body

through unresisting air.

Immutable laws

  —  no last-ditch appeal,

no clemency.

Of course, as everyone knows

it’s not the fall that does you in;

it’s the sudden stop at the end.