Treading the Line

By Justine C. Tajonera

There was a moment
I leaped from nothing
to comprehension:
an afternoon in my childhood
when a word transformed
from an inscrutable figure
into something
that could be
read.

There was a day
when the word, bread,
was something real
that could be
tasted
and yet an idea,
abstract,
representative.

The days when I have
tread the line
have been few

but luminous.

I fear the line
because
an edge
nearly always
precedes
the fall.

But a life
with no edges
has no flight
or even the possibility
of it.

I stand here,
gathering my strength,
on the
line.

(April 20. 2010)
Image from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:About_to_dive_off_a_dock.jpg