Learning to Fall Down the Stairs
Loop1
To learn to fall downstairs you have to learn to roll downstairs
Like rolling down a hill
This is easier to learn when you’re a child, when rolling in the grass comes naturally
When the idea does not seem strange, instead it catches the imagination
Thoughts of falling downstairs seem exciting, more real, and more “actual” than
Using a slide in a playground
To roll downstairs is to expand the playground; the world becomes your playground
It breaks that wall trapping children in a box
The first time is the best,
A waking time
Hopping, then jumping, and soaring
Jack and Jill
Hit and roll
Feet over head
Taking care to breath, and the rolling
Enjoying every moment
Sounds echo off the hall
So exciting to take care of the fall
Waiting for the landing at the end
Loop 2
Sometimes, once you’ve learned to fall
It becomes a habit, a way of life
You can begin to enjoy odd things
Like losing
Like being last, expecting to fail
You can get a kick out of
Knowing bad news is coming
So down you go again
Into that dark hole where
You pretend everything is alright
And you have a little bit of light
Which you can hold, and that is enough
But the light is only there
When you can find it
And sometimes, after a hard night’s sleep
The earth is still in darkness when you awake
And you fumble for that little bit of light
But can not find it
And then you must walk in the pressing dark
Which makes it hard to think, makes it hard to eat, to walk,
To work, to breath
Down and down into that rabbit hole, digging more
And more to get away till you become
The rabbit digging the hole
Then deeper still till you become the claws of the rabbit digging the hole
Then deeper still till you become the dirt that is being dug
Until finally you become the blackness
Inside that deep hole
And you know
That you are home—the furid smell of rich, dark dirt
Fills your nostril, the feel of worms around you, the
Silence of those buried
Loop 3
The worm in the soil hits the rotted wood
And pushes forward
Why does he keep pushing through the rotting wood?
This is hard work for a worm.
Is there a biologist who studies the motivation of worms? And why they
Push through things, as if knowing there is something inside?
Or, are they (the biologist that is) looking objectively at the worm, not caring about motivation, but trying to see things objectively by measuring, numbering, weighting, and never asking why. Why the push through the coffin wall to the inside.
To look objectively does the scientist consider the worm an object …just a thing?
Oh sure, the worm fills a purpose, performs a task, sure it fills the organic whole
That is life—but does the biologist ever wonder—late at night, why does the worm push?
Do they think the worm is just an organic robot, programmed to move, and gobble and digest and recycle …
But I, I will tell you the truth
This is not what the scientist wishes to hear—but the poets must answer
That yes, the worm does know. The worm can sense, and smell, and taste and know what is in that box
And the worm pushes, Mr. Scientist, the worm will dig and wiggle
Until he gets his meal, be that meal man, woman, dog, cat, Einstein, Hitler, mom, dad, or
Even you, Mr. Scientist, think about that—even you.
