Dangerous

Its time to move various elements in the direction in which I want them to go in the long term. But comfort zones do exist, and the heart is fickle, and life is unexpected. Just three hours ago, I had asked K to understand his drivers. Do I know mine? I do, but sometimes refuse to acknowledge them, for some of those drivers are things that I want, not need. And that's dangerous, because it spells destruction, for the self and others, something that I observed in so many others as they moved down this path to death without realising it. I need to move out of this danger, hence this poem, filched from the other space I inhabit. It haunts me on this seemingly lazy Sunday evening, causing me to clench my fist in some parts, causing me to cry in some other. I am not ruthless, I am just a survivor.

Out of Danger

Heart be kind and sign the release
As the trees their loss approve.
Learn as leaves must learn to fall
Out of danger, out of love.

What belongs to frost and thaw
Sullen winter will not harm.
What belongs to wind and rain
Is out of danger from the storm.

Jealous passion, cruel need
Betray the heart they feed upon.
But what belongs to earth and death
Is out of danger from the sun.

I was cruel, I was wrong -
Hard to say and hard to know.
You do not belong to me.
You are out of danger now -

Out of danger from the wind,
Out of danger from the wave,
Out of danger from the heart
Falling, falling out of love.

- James Fenton