Balance

Too much of anything

will kill you. Even love is

not exempt

or so I’ve heard.

You lapped up all the

ice cream as a girl,

told your mother it would

melt in your solar

plexus. Even then

you knew your innards

like a glove its restless nails.

Everything points to the middle

when you’ve fled. Torridity's not

required to fend the frost.

My Sensei said the

centre neither starves

nor satiates. Suffering’s

only grasped when it is

carried. Children know to

leap is their salvation.

It’s why jails are

always bolted to the earth.

Where are the deathly

shackles of the air?

I’m the grouse who moults

her feathers for fear of flight—

like the woods their prismed leaves—

finds elusive

             illumination

every hop,

for seeds will ever descry

the fallow ground, its ache for

touch and grace, its settling

for a sister’s kiss, gravity’s

golden wink

among the squalls.

Andreas Gripp

August 13, 2026

photograph: Allen J. Schaben / Getty Images