The trick is to not look down.
The trick is to find that still place deep in your belly,
and hold it firmly,
and let the world move past you.
The trick is to look straight ahead,
to the end of the rope.
The trick is to make nets,
festoon the world with tightly woven webs
so that if you fall, you’ll be caught,
held gently by your own foresight.
The trick is to hang above the void
and sparkle.
The trick is to keep it balanced –
work and life and kids and friends and keeping fit
and what’s for dinner and the school run and facebook
and shopping and sex and cake to take into the office
and ringing your mum and cleaning the bathroom
because you’re so wonderful and so on top of it all.
The trick is not to mind the pain.
The trick is to hold out your arms.
The trick is to hang suspended and smile
your brightest smile.
The trick is
sequins.
I’m the ringmaster at dVerse tonight, where we are writing poems on a circus theme. Do come and join us!
Sarah writes poems 
Right from the opening, I could feel that this is about life – no wonder it’s such a powerful metaphor. I haven’t tried sequins – maybe that’s what I’ve been missing, lol.
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Sequins are good.
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I love how you really tied it together… what a great metaphor for modern life of women (and some modern men)… sequins might be the solution in the end if they don’t become the purpose.
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“held gently by foresight” is a great phrase, and a state to be desired. Good write!
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Indeed all that sparkles in life. Even stars above.
Luv youf take on the circus of life
Happy you dropped by to read mine
Much😊💛😊love
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Thank you!
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surging– powerful
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Nice ending with sequins as the final trick. I also liked “The trick is to hang above the void
and sparkle.”
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Thank you, Frank.
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This is a terrific poem–you are woman & we can hear you roar. It is a performance piece. I read it aloud and it works well; nice job. Thanks for hosting.
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Thank you! I’m enjoying the responses. Glad you like my piece. Funnily enough, I usually read a poem aloud, but I don’t think I did this time…
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I love this one so much, Sarah. Great use of repetition.
I’m going to have to get some cat-proof sequins. Here I thought the secret was chocolate. 🙂
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Really enjoyed this, magic!
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I took the ‘sequin’ solution to be ironical. On the lines of give her a bit of glamour and she’ll shut up, what she wants is a night out from time to time and she won’t mind the rest. I might be completely wrong…
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I think I meant that if you dazzled people with enough glitter they won’t notice the struggle happening underneath. I have a love-hate relationship with sequins.
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I see. Either way, the sequins are the smoke screen.
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AH, this is so well done — the tightrope walk through life is all about keeping balance. This is quite refreshing and evocative in its relation and identification with the modern way of living.
I am also somehow reminded of the grimness and the life-death struggle of the balance that never stays in Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance.
I love this bit: “festoon the world with tightly woven webs/so that if you fall, you’ll be caught,/held gently by your own foresight.”
-HA
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Nice metaphor…I think of sequins as smiling thru it all
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Ha, I should have known the trick was sequins all along. I’ll have to switch my wardrobe to Western, lol
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Love it! Crammed with truth and a funny ending, to boot.
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A wonderful wise poem. No one makes it across the tightrope of life with their arms folded.
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This was sublime! Loved the metaphor…and sequins, of course, solves it all!
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The repetition of ‘the trick’ is effective in your extended metaphor, Sarah. I know that feeling of trying not to look down, and that still place deep in my belly, I find myself holding it firmly every time I leave the house. You’re right, ‘The trick is to hang above the void / and sparkle’. I suppose sequins can help – but not too many – they can dazzle a bit too much! 🙂
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i do like a little bling. sometimes we do need to trick ourselves into seeing that what we have in our ordinary world is contentment indeed.
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Love the metaphor of walking a tightrope. It works in so many ways.
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LOVE it! A little bling can go a long way….and love that “balance” stanza with all those things including sex mentioned! 🙂
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Life can be a bit of a circus…love your poem!
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Now this is how to use an extended metaphor in a poem! I love your use of the opening words “the trick is…” And this is the money line for me: “and shopping and sex and cake to take into the office …” Wonderfully done, Sarah!
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I love this!
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Optimism, focus, and sequins! How they make us sparkle! I really enjoyed this write.
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Thank you!
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That’s a very clever poem. I like the way you relate walking a tight rope to the job of being a modern woman coping with the demands of busy family life. I love the line “the trick is sequins”. There is a kind of magic to the juggling act a mother performs.
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I like the pace of this and the image of festooning the world in tight webs, the idea that we have some control in how we fall and in what will catch us.
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To hang above the void and sparkle…yes and yes again. (K)
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Very nicely written — stepping out on the trope which becomes the perilous rope a complicated, all-at-once mom has to walk. And those sequins, masquerading as smiles … perfect.
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