Rolling Logs

 You’re on the other side of the log-filled river - slowed here to a log-filled lake - bridgeless, too wide for you to hear my entreaties.

Meeting halfway is not an option, a river-centre, on a base of choppy logs, is no place to flourish. I will cross over and bring you back. 

Think of this timber cargo as floating steppingstones I mime, we will be weightless, agile, feather-touching for balance only, our weight elsewhere before it’s noticed. 

I learn that log-ends give way, that middles are best,  I learn I can’t control rolling, and never to mount two boots on the same rough bark. 

I go with the bounce, skyhook over a risky lower quarter to the confident middle beyond; through to a near miss when one foot, foolishly, briefly, fails to straddle two slim trunks, my other foot compensating like a ballet dancer with a hesitant partner. And the major log in-line manages me perfectly.

Was I concentrating too much, monitoring only my feet, no sign of my attention being on you?  Or was it my determination, my noisy breathing that scared you away, the intensity of my story stockading you on solid ground? Or did you already know that walking on river-carried logs was too hard, too dangerous, simply not worth it, for the limited reward that was on offer?