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Poetry About Balance

Balance is not a static state but a constant, gentle adjustment. It is the tightrope walker's focus, the scale's momentary stillness, and the heart's equitable division of love and duty. These poems explore the search for equilibrium in a life that is constantly tipping.

We look for balance in nature - the tide that comes in and goes out, the day that meets the night - and we try to replicate that symmetry within ourselves. It is the practice of holding on and letting go at the exact same time.

Featured Poems

The Tightrope

Life viewed as a high-wire act.

One foot in front of the other, arms wide to catch the air. To the left, the past, heavy and full of stone.
To the right, the future, light and full of wind. I walk the thin line between, the present moment vibrating under my soles.
To stop is to fall. To run is to fall. There is only this: the step, the breath, the balance.

- Phillip Aerial

Scales

Weighing the heavy things against the light.

I put my grief on one side, a dark, dense iron weight. The plate hits the table with a thud.
On the other side, I stack my small joys: morning coffee, a bird's song, fresh sheets, a friend's laugh.
It takes so many feathers to lift the iron, but slowly, trembling, the bar begins to rise until it hovers, perfectly still, in the middle of the air.

- Justine Libra

Center of Gravity

Finding the stillness within.

The world spins madly, a carousel of noise and color. If I look at the blurring edge, I get dizzy and sick.
But if I close my eyes and sink into the center, into the quiet hum of my own blood, the spinning stops.
I become the axis, still and silent, while the universe turns around me.

- Milo Core

Classic Voices

Ode on a Grecian Urn (Excerpt)

by John Keats (1819)

Keats finds a permanent, frozen balance in art.

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme...

A Supermarket in California

by Allen Ginsberg (1955)

A search for spiritual balance in a material world.

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

Micro Verses

Too much sun burns the leaf. Too much rain drowns the root.

- Gardener Sage

Work and rest, inhale and exhale, the rhythm of life cannot fail.

- Yogi Bearer

Stand on one leg and you will know how much the earth moves.

- Zen Master

Gravity is just the earth asking for a hug.

- Physics Poet

Deeper Explorations

Work-Life Balance

The modern struggle.

The Clock and the Heart

The clock says run, the heart says stay. I spend my life negotiating the day.

- Timeless

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