...The Gravity of the Situation...

Sometimes gravity is 

not enough, and   

other times,  

far too much.

Somewhere between the two 

we make our weighed decision but 

   in reality it has very little 

   bearing on the outcome.

I suppose it’s that instant when

we’re suspended mid-air that

we’d like to feel we are most alive,

but in truth it’s that moment of impact

when our bodies come in contact

   with the Earth’s surface…

When we fail to pass    

   beneath ground…

When that fulcrum edge 

that defines life or death

makes itself apparent.

 

Tim and I   

did not   want to die.

No, we just wanted to

play teeter-totter with that

guy who holds the scythe

and see if we could make him

hold on to the see-saw board

just as tight as we.

 

Child’s play. The two of us 

feeling that pull of gravity

as we rocketed down a hill 

   on our runner sleds,

seconds away from that moment when

we’d hit a snow-covered hump that

would give us momentary respite from

that unwavering river 

   of mortality.

Yes, and all the while, the two of us 

ever amazed how immortality lasts 

no more than the 

brief span of a second;

indeed, just about 

the time it takes  to utter,

“The Gravity of the Situation.”

 

“The Gravity of the Situation.”

It’s a mantra your heart whispers aloud

with each consecutive beat, all

whilst your acutely conscious self 

remains conveniently deaf.

 

And there after our fiftieth launch

over that death-defying hump,

Tim and I came to the conclusion that

death had gotten bored with us 

and had wandered away 

down to the adjacent ice-covered river.

So of course if our aim was to taunt death,

that was where we were meant to be.

 

And as two young boys edge out onto ice

with their trusty runner sleds,

Death sat there at the bottom of the river,

nestled next to a frigid fish who

tilted his body ever so 

to gaze up at those who 

blotched his light 

if only for a second.

 

Runner sleds on ice.

Where was the gravity in that?

Where was the thrill if there was

nothing to pull you down?

We existed upon a horizontal plain.

This skittery side 

to that frozen other.

Running full-tilt and 

slamming our bodies down upon sleds 

to hurtle cross ice until our 

runners came to halt

upon the river’s distant bank.

And that should have been thrill enough. 

Should have been.  

 

To just what length would you go

to feel the beat of your heart?

For Tim, this would be the end of 

mere side to side navigation, and a 

mighty run at that entire river’s length.  

 

And I imagine Tim sustained a

full five seconds of immortality

before that ice beneath his runners broke.

And there for a moment   Tim   was gone.

There for a full second, Tim

actually got to hear his heart murmur,

“The Gravity of the Situation,” whilst

there in the river’s depths,

dark things shifted    ever so.

 

Yes, well…

There’s a strange thing about rivers.

They tend to rise and fall.

Layers of ice… rise    and fall.

Some three feet down beneath

the ice through which Tim broke,

there was yet    another    layer.

And there Tim heaved back up

   from his absolute death and 

   was reborn of ice.

Though Tim was cold and wet

and scared to death (almost),

you had to admit he was

pretty good at playing that

   teeter…  totter game.

 

Many years later, Tim chose to

   learn how to scuba dive.

Oh and you have to wonder why

anyone would choose to pursue

   such a hobby when

the only bodies of water around

were muddy lakes and rivers.

What would you ever hope to find

at the bottom of such a silt-laden river?

 

And then one day, Tim was asked 

to find something at the bottom of a river.

That same river of which Tim

had once broken through the ice.

 

There in a bend of that river,

a jam of sunken trees had amassed.

A snarl of branches and bark

of which water would roil

and flow through but which

other objects would not.

That which could snag on a

   splintered branch or twig.

A billow of fabric.    

A clot of cloth.

A child’s streaming hair.

Tim was sent to the bottom of that river

in search of someone’s   lost treasure.

 

In his youth, Tim had embraced

   the sport of hand-fishing.

Something his fellow practitioners

   referred to as “Tickling”.

The “tickling” came from 

the act of reaching down into a 

fish’s underwater lair,

letting your hand come in contact

with the lurking creature’s side 

and then slowly caressing its flesh 

until you could safely slip your fingers 

into its exposed gills and 

extract it up to the shore. 

 

And there in that same river

of which Tim tickled for fish, 

he found himself probing 

   tentative hands 

between a gnarled array of cavities, 

while his expulsion of air rose up 

through rotting branches to 

burble away at the surface above. 

He in that murky opaque dark, 

knowing he was at one with that 

same death he had escaped 

   so many years before. 

 

And with each extension of his hand, 

he wondered what it would be

that his fingertips would touch. 

The hem of her skirt? 

The smooth flesh of her ankle? 

The final gesture of an 

outstretched hand? 

 

And there in those tragic depths, 

while cheerless faces awaited him 

there upon river bank, 

Tim reached out 

to tickle the face of 

someone’s 

little girl. 

 

Ó2010 Jack David Hubbell