never always

windless world 

so dead and silent. 

sunless sky 

so grey and cold. 

dead men walk 

with perfect steps, 

always never looking up. 

songless tune 

so hollow and buzzing. 

painless sorrow 

so sweet and cloying. 

dead men dance 

to comic rhythm, 

always never rising up. 

pointless striving 

so desperately urgent. 

hopeless struggle 

so sure in form. 

dead men sleep 

with soft white pillows, 

always never waking up. 

Yesterday he had heard that a friend was in the hospital, having suffered some sort of psychotic break over the weekend. He didn’t know any details beyond that. This was a good friend. Not simply an acquaintance, but a gentle soul whose friendship had become a cherished prize. They lived some 80 miles apart, and had maintained contact only within the structure of shared activities. They had never become the sort of friends who hang out and spend their leisure time together, but they were kindred spirits. He was disturbed at this dark piece of news, but because of the limited boundaries of the friendship, he found himself at a loss to know what to do.

Then later, well into the evening, he had gotten word that an old friend whom he had not seen in 15 years was up for sentencing in a murder trial in Idaho. It would be death at the hands of the state or life in prison without possibility of parole. This old friend had always had a hard time, and things apparently had not changed for him. He had a long history of mental illness, and had shot and killed a female police officer in a drug-induced attempt to force the police to kill him in a hail of gunfire. But the police had been restrained in their response and overpowered and subdued him instead. Suicide at the hands of the police had failed him. Now he had been convicted of first degree aggravated murder of a police officer in a state that makes no legal provision for insanity as a defense. Idaho might ultimately oblige his death wish after all.

These two pieces of dark news had hit him close and hard. It seemed that sensitive hearts of deep gentle souls were more at risk than most. Both of his broken friends fit that pattern. Both were spiritually alive men who had more than their share of compassion and gentleness and tender sensibilities. Both were creative. Both were troubled and quiet and well loved by their peers. Both were at the edge.

It seemed to him as he pondered all this, that all the creative hearts he knew were on the edge. It seemed that being true to your heart, honestly facing the frightening and disturbing complexities of our world, being faithful to the compassion in your core, all made it essential to remain dangerously close to the edge. He doubted that creativity and spiritual integrity could survive anywhere other than at the precipice of emotional disaster. There were simply too many intricate, complex mysteries, too much baffling enigma, too many impossible moral dilemmas, too much complex biology and emotional chemistry.

And so, creative living soul is drawn to the edge as a moth to the light. There is no life for such people in the safety of the flatland; no peace in stability; no comfort in security. The hearts and minds of such people are always in danger of loving, and hurting, and caring, and committing, and striving too much; going too far; slipping and stumbling in the unsure footing of the edge. As he wrestled with the plight of each of his two broken friends, he realized just how precarious was the journey that he had embarked upon.