Balancing on Air – Lynne Bryer This poem arose during a course of radiotherapy At Devil’s Peak, bright blustery days bring seagulls in to float against a green so steep it seems to hang there, reduced by height, or painted in with mediated care, like those miniature Italian groves beyond Renaissance sitters. Undaunted, seagulls rise: sheer scythes, all wing and body; they tilt the eye in watchfulness, a patent hungering. Below, I lean into the wind but wearily, called by disease to that Great Barn* that gathers in the dying and the live, though no one knows who’ll harvest whom among such moping stooks and sheaves as line these shuffling corridors. Day after day I go for rays invisible and strange that bore through air and scorch the flesh and would scorch bone but for the care the handlers take. I trust them, as I must. But with reluctance go to enter those gloomy portals, leave behind wind, sky and hill. The ancient words flash in. So I lift my eyes – and meet the seagull’s glide, that hanging in, the sidelong slide into a thermal. Then a wobble. At once corrected, but I’ve seen, am left conjecturing why one whose element is everywhere moment by moment still needs refine his skill. Standing, I stare. This then’s survival: not passive drift, nor fear, but jaunty, sword-edge joy, extempore: this balancing on air. *Groote Schuur – the name of the hospital means ‘Great Barn’. [ed.] (In: Chapman, M. (Ed.). 2002. The New Century of South African Poetry. Johannesburg: Ad Donker, pp. 348-349)
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The poem "Balancing on Air" by Lynne Bryer is a reflection on the author's experience with radiotherapy. The setting is Devil's Peak, a location known for its steep greenery and blustery days that attract seagulls. Show more…
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