Balance

Balance is everything, is the only

way to hold on.

I’ve weighed the alternatives, the hold

as harbor: It isn’t safe

to let go. But consider the hover,

choices made, the moment

between later and too late.

Hesitation is later, regret

too late. You can’t keep turning

and turning, or expecting

to return. This earth

is not a wheel, it is a rock

that erodes, mountain by mountain.

And I have been too soft,

like sandstone, but there is a point

where I stand without a story,

immutable and moved, solid

as a breath in winter air.

I have seen my death and I know

it is my neighbor, my brother,

my keeper. In my life

I am going to keep trying

for the balance,

remembering the risks and the value

of extremes, and that experience

teaches the length of allowable lean;

that it is easier — and wiser —

to balance a stone as if on one toe

though it weigh a hundred pounds

than to push it back against the curve

of its own world.

by Alice B. Fogel is New Hampshire’s State Poet Laureate (2014-2019).

I came across this little nugget of a poem and found it worth keeping. I loved the poet’s observation that balance hovers – it is “the moment between later and too late. Hesitation is later, regret is too late.”

Making a decision can sometimes be a wrenching thing as we envision the results of our action first one way, then another. Back and forth, we go weighing and balancing, until the very last moment when we make a snap decision. In that moment, having disregarded our hopes or fears, we collapse with the relief of deciding. For better or worse, the die is cast. No more flailing in mental gymnastics or emotional reactions – that in itself, is the reward of deciding. It is only in retrospect that we have the luxury of evaluating the correctness of our decision.

This is why, I believe, that Zen Buddhism extols the virtues of spontaneity. No weighing, no evaluating, no rationalizing. Instead, by disregarding the need for balance, balance is achieved.