"Falling" a word-play documentary

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into a rock garden

                             off a five-foot concrete wall

                                                                          on my stomach

apparently set off a movie

                                                     in the unconscious

introducing the body to the v

                                             e

                                             r

                                             t

                                             i

                                             c

                                             a

                                             l

                                                               universe

was it a trap or an invitation?

                                      was it an opportunity or a sentence?

or more likely a pseudonym

                                             for

                                                 loss

                                                       of

                                                         control

                               in spiritual terms

a loss of ego, self, a dissolving

                                                  into something “greater?”

                                                                                       than ‘me’

or a foreshadowing

                                 of “falling” in love….with

                                                                              another?

                                                                                          the etereal?

                                                                                                           God?

repeated when falling from a two-wheeler

                                                         crashing into a car sneaking

                                                                                                   from an angle-park

                                            into my path

                          while the biker gawked at Shannon a passing co-ed

                                              

and later, this time falling  u  p   the stage stairs  and landing face    d

                                                                                                               o

                                                                                                                 w

                                                                                                                    n

                                                                                                          on the stage

                    in Steelworkers’ Hall

                                                       in front of five-hundred laughing adults

 while earnestly and immaturely pursuing the “star” trophy in the

                                   1951 Kiwanis Music Festival… playing John Thompson’s

                       Three Blind Mice

reinforced by an accidental slip on soap,

                                mischievously rubbed

                                             into the rope rug

                                                                       on the diving board

secured by a rusted bolt that

                                                     pierced the shin, leaving the bone exposed…

as if the universe needed more reinforcement

                                         this innocent was coached by a best “friend”

in the proper stance for firing a twelve-gauge shot-gun for the

                                                                                                   first time

“hold it loose from your shoulder, to avoid its kick”

                                          was his instruction before he backed away

                                into uproarious laughter as I

                                                                                landed on my derrier

and then, at sixteen returning from the YWCA camp

                                                          in the half-ton, with the three-ton engine,

                             we slid into the ditch and struck a large boulder,

           tipping the truck onto its left side

                                                              pinning the red leather jacket I was wearing

                                                                            to the road out the driver’s window

another fall,

                    this time,

                                    in a machine

                                                         outdone by the

embarrassment when the town saw the

                                                              crippled Dodge

                                                                                with its Dad-sign

on the tow-truck’s lot hours later

                                                            on Sunday morning

still relentlessly trying to tame the green-broke filly

                                       the envelop with piano exam results

from the Conservatory

                                                         exposed a 63, when a 70

was needed to pass

                                
     and the darkened car that jammed into

                  the right-front “bug” fender, on a sloppy snowy intersection

at Richmond and Central as this sophomore turned in

                             pursuit of a pizza after a day of

              reading Milton’s Paradise Lost

                                                   in prep. for finals at Western

and then falling into the recently thawed

                                  Rosseau River,

                                                          out of a twelve-foot canoe,

                                                             while shepherding an outdoor class of teens..

the movie reaches a turning point

                                                     in a conversation in Callander

with a poet, who quietly asks, after reading some attempts at poems,

                            “when are you going to jump off the cliff?”

had the universe been shouting “Lucifer,” that angel of pride

                              who fell from heaven….into deaf ears?

                 had the universe been trying to get my attention?

                                    had these many “falls” been the universe’s

call to awaken a sleeping,

                                        protected,

                                                       masked  

                                                                      impenetrable

                                                                             frozen

                                                                                        psyche and soul?

without consciousness, was this another archetype of the

                       Anglican/Episcopal

                                                       Chosen Frozen?

little wonder, when confronted by choirs, guilds, and committees, as well as

                                        Bishops and Archdeacons

                                                                                  from inside

I experienced a bucket-full of “cubes”

                                                        needing their own

                                                                                      falls/thaws/meltdowns

                                                                            in silence