Backward Mutters

Day 20’s Poetry Pub prompt for the Poem a Day Challenge is “turning tides.”

You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

Our rocky planet spins in a bubble
Of water and stone that travels through space
In a capsule of air. And gravity,
The weakest fundamental force in
The universe, holds it all in together.

I’m told the tides do not really turn,
Rather, the earth turns in tides — the oceans
Stretched by the tidal forces of the moon
And sun who each tug on the earth

I too am pulled between the ebb and flow
Of light and its reflection. I am torn
By the physics of a molten iron core
Spinning a magnetic field of intensity or
Am crushed by the sheer mass and weight of things.

But it is not strength which holds me together
It is the weakest if you count it
As a force, for it resists force. Rather,
It is forbearing, sometimes forlorn,
An always free-giving grace which endures
All things, does not side-glance or skepticize,
But believes, never quits but hopes, endures.

My rocky world spins in a bubble
Of family and friends and travels through space
In a capsule of place, bathed in tidal
Waves which throw themselves on, crash in my heart
Where I am held by the weakest force in the universe.

© Randall Edwards 2023