The Muscularity of Risk - Steve Trenam

[Larry Robinson]


The Muscularity of Risk

I’d like to experience the thrill of falling,
not the unobserved tragedy of Bruegel’s Icarus,
but with applause for a soft landing.
No waxen legs going down for a third time,
but legs galumphing up onto the shore.

And not Webster’s galumph,
“to move along heavily and clumsily,”
but Louis Carroll’s combination
of gallop and triumph.
Having survived a fall like that
a triumphant gallop surely must follow.

Unhitch the plow horse and go for a ride.
Dry off under a Tumtum tree
and admire the tulgey wood
as all beamish boys should.

Trot home and flatten your elders
with how far you fell.
They should be proud of your lunacy
for who among them would have taken the risk?

Bluster on into town
and tell anyone who’ll listen,
you are the Cedar Waxwing
of humanity,
an exalted splash of color
to enliven the pulse of poets
everywhere.

	- Steve Trenam