Rain nourishes flowers and weeds,

Sun’s blessing can blister and burn,

Cooling wind trumpets into tornadoes,

Earth massages our feet until we step on a fault line.

Each day we walk a narrow ribbon of road

Delineating the demilitarized zone,

Trusting we will not slip from the high wire

So we balance on a knife’s edge but sometimes—

We reach out, stretch muscles the breaking point

To grasp an apricot and revel

In the sweetness of life’s lush fruit.