The Ledge

We sat talking in a cafe in Juneau,
Alaska. The windows were dark with rain,
black sky in the middle of the afternoon.
You told me a story:  a woman

stumbles and falls into an abyss. She
hangs, desperately clinging to a tree
rooted in the cliffside. God!  she cries,
Help me!      I'll help you, God says,

Let go. You smiled and finished your beer.
We left together. Later, we fell apart,
as friends will do; months I wouldn't hear
from you. You left out the part

about the ledge, the ledge she couldn't see,
carpeted with shrubs, just below her feet.

Comments

[Anne]

Faith and friendships and letting go. Such a small poem... such a lot to consider.

[Didi]

I love this poem.

[LRDR]

I loved this poem, I, who don't normaly enjoy them.

Cool.

LRDR

[Cathy]

Excellent poem, I to chuckle about the falling apart line. All my friendship in life have done that.

[SaraS]

I love this.

[Aleah/Jane]

Beautiful. Thanks for sharing this.

[Dick Jones]

This is wonderful - a triumph of compression & economy. Small but perfectly formed. Beautifully read too.

[melly]

Really neat to hear you read your own poem over the internet! Thank you!

[fp]

Good poem. Nicely rendered. Thanks.

[h2]

I don't know why you're so self-critical about this poem, except that every writer tends to be that way.

I think this poem is quite good. To me, it simply and concisely draws an image of doubting simply because we can't see a reason for assurance. It also does turn a nice observational phrase on friendships, but I think the thing I took from it was the reality that hope is often there, even when we can't see it.