By A Thread

Balanced on a tipping point thanks solely to our own good and focused efforts

Risking not only our foolish selves but the entire complex web of life on earth as well

So close now we must shout above the noise we make so we do not have to hear

Hanging on by someone else’s fingernail while we concern ourselves only with the view

Piddling with the fancy GPS instead of just looking up ahead through the windshield

Held up by an unraveling thread yet somehow still struggling wildly to be freed

Heated almost to the boiling point but unwilling to turn down the flame

Out of breath but still running while trying to bray silly orders and directions

Able to see the consequences clearly now but still unwilling to change the course

Just looking at the road ahead as the entire load commences to sway and tip

Depending that the river ice won’t break as we cross far too late in the springtime

Speeding through a stormy night overloaded with worn out tires on bad roads

Stumbling in the darkness but too much in a hurry to take the time to fix the light

Wading just at the edge of a steep, invisible drop-off without knowing how to swim

Needle pegged on empty but so far away from any town on a cloudy, moonless night

Talking on the cellphone and screaming at the kids as the latte spills and a truck pulls out

Much older now, for such a long time, than we ever imagined we could become

Safe and dry with a picnic lunch in our rowboat unaware of the waterfall up ahead

In a hurry, but blinded, on a foggy night with the street covered all in white

So near to losing all we’ve built but staying focused on living only for the moment

At the point where an unlikely salvation can only just arrive in the very nick of time

Unknowingly separated by merest hairsbreadth from total and eternal annihilation

Milliseconds from a stunning crash we did not see coming and will not live to remember

Catching the disappearing rays of the last gorgeous sunset on our final dream vacation

Caught in a still picture of that fantastic blur at the end of this, our futile race

Poised upon a great divide and now at the mercy of entropy as to which way we flow

Having risen to the edge of space there is this brief and subtle pause upon our zenith

Reaching too far over, from several rungs too high, with no one below to steady us

Betting everything on an untested long shot some salesman touted as the next sure thing

Just one more minor system insult from initiating a cascading set of networked failures

Going so fast that even if we make it we won’t really know until it’s way long over

Hanging by one silky thread but still living really large thanks to greed and denial