by the skins of teeth

as time goes by
or on
more things become challenged
like
the center that can hold
no longer
as Yeats claims in a work and
Achebe citing Yeats a while after on
as
Achebe’s own

the challenged become challenges
which might be natural
though sets of
connotations
they
go negative

burdens to change
and burdens are
bad
so challenges should be avoidable
like
those
in the veneered way we eschew
anything above
below the line

I will say this for
barriers
that they might not be favorable
except as they announce
and
protect things
here
and there
great things
such as reefs of coral
as well as certain boundaries in outer space
needed
to sign
in here it is distinctive as community
there is a major purpose
whereas
cosmic diversity should be made
of these discretions

identity
vital
and then to know another’s

therefore
and shall we say for proof
that
challenges and barriers
are set
even haphazardly by the fixed math
randomness
and
the beneath-our-skin appreciation of chaos

let age make these keen
as in
more knowable

the things we understand and
things to do
that we know better now for
having looked at them
so normally
over
at last
enough time
to know dimensions and their purpose
and at long last
to know
how to apply the passwords
on stones
or in
skies so very long
as if the clues had been there from the start
as when something is
when something’s made
the truth of its reality
is there
is here

c l couch


The Skin Our of Teeth is the title of a play by Thornton Wilder, the title taken from the phrase first given in the Bible, Job 19:20

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” is from “The Second Coming,” a poem by W. B. Yeats; later, Things Fall Apart was taken for the title of a novel by Chinua Achebe

here is a note I first wrote for myself about the poem (above): there is the failing in our efforts because we need things normal, regular; differences, then, along with diversity become challenges with challenges themselves as negative for being difficult—or maybe only different; but differences, challenges, barriers are all parts in creation and existence; and we would serve all these and ourselves better if we made positive allowances for these vital parts of what there is and who we are and what we have (and what we have to do)

photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash
(isn't it symmetrical; isn't it asymmetrical)