The long and precarious tightrope walk
stopped
when I left the big top
of teaching. Now
I walk on creative stilts,
sometimes teetering,
sometimes tumbling
into a safety net of words and rhyme.
I don’t worry because I have the time.
Kim M. Russell, 17th January 2019
My response to Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Life: Paradox And / Or Balance
Sumana says that our lives are hybrids of opposites in which we struggle to strike a balance between two forces: apathy and care, brutality and kindness, faith and doubt, pleasure and pain. She would like us to explore the opposites and either let them all merge together in harmony or write about the antithesis or impossible balancing act life is.
I have rewritten a poem I wrote and posted back in 2016.
writing in north norfolk 
“into a safety net of words and rhyme.”–Aha this is one precious space to be in. Lovely.
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Thank you, Sumana.
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It is quite a satisfying thing to do in writing ones feeling down in poetry. I quite enjoyed starting the practice after retiring and being able to shed that skin and don another one!
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It’s so liberating.
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Oh! To have the time. Me, too! I totally love this: “the big top
of teaching.”
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Thank you, Susan.
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Time for oneself is a great luxury and will always be appreciated by those who have never had any.
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I understand so well, this poem. I find myself in there as well. Being a writer in my retirement years.
Happy you dropped by my blog
Much love…
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Thank you, Gillena, and much love to you. 🙂
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I get you, I get you! We are indeed, on the same wavelength. Not only the title (I can walk on stilts too 🙂 but because I dabble in teaching even though all I want to do is write.
The only difference is that I often worry, do I have time to leave my mark on the world. That’s purely vanity, of course. 😀
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It’s so lovely to find a kindred spirit. Khaya!
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I love the walking on creative stilts! And I, too, enjoy having time be my own, after seventy years of working and Doing.
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When I was a child, I had a friend with a pair of stilts and was determined to master them – I never did!
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Oh, I love it. You now have the time. Interesting. One of my mantras is to remind myself, ‘you only think you have time.’ Thank you for sharing.
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Thank you for reading and commenting, Susanne! It’s true, I seem to be busy all the time!
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I read this one aloud more times than it’s decent to confess. I love the sounds it makes. I love the truths it tells. I feel enchanted (and empowered) by what it promises (in my eyes): change is growth, growth is good, change and growth breed more chances… and lessons.
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Thank you, dear Magaly. Teaching was really like balancing on a high wire, with little time for anything else. I wasn’t allowed to take time off for a family wedding or funeral – we had to do all of that in the school holidays! Now I do things when I want, how I want, without constant criticism, and the encouragement of other poets.
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