Philippe Petit: Balanced On His Best Day Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

he will be balanced on a diamond thread
between two points: connecting the heart
to the Heart someday

around his head flowed the stars of Van Gogh,
the unfounded galaxies, the future snows,
the opalescent birds cut from their fairy tales at last,

escaped into ruby paned air oh through the ivoried
plumes of cloud oh

how will he wound the doves with a mere gesture?
she sighed to his detractors
doffing his crown of breezes and if he slips it is not into

the abyss but into our wondering care
or wedged somewhere, so quietly
he thinks it is dreaming,

in a pale blue notebook,
cloud clotted lines
of the elegiac poem of a

little girl's old homework,
returning on a crayoned wind
inferring

she's from the everywhere,
collecting her bouquets,
her pocket creme sachets,

who rushes there-
as if to say: oh, not too late papa-
with borrowed gemmy wings o!

just in case?

mary angela douglas 8 june 2014

Note on the Poem: the little girl in the poem is a reference
to his daughter, Gypsy who died at 9 years old of a brain hemorrhage. This poem was written just after a very poetic interview (I mean Philippe Petit gave poetic answers to perfect questions) of Philippe Petit by Bob Edwards radio today on the subject of Mr. Petit's new book: Creativity: the Perfect Crime. Previously I had watched the lovely film Man on Wire, which also influenced the poem in a similar way.

By 'unfounded galaxies' I mean: non-commercial space,
Space as dreamed of through centuries by children, poets, and astronomers...