Bubbles

Posted on 8.17.2012

we are bubbles.
fragile
precious
colors on the breeze.
each one of us
floating
and our time
variable, unpredictable.
some lasting, persisting
holding on.
others ending.
and i wish
we were made
of more sturdy stuff.
glass perhaps.
lasting until
cracking
upon touching
each other.
steel then.
our contact
a sliding by
frictionless
unchanging,
all safe
and metallically frozen.
still
this is not
what we have.
but this:
a rainbow
a membrane of shape
held momentarily in the sunlight.
and someone
you and i
beautiful
watching
loving
and suffering
inside of it all.

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10 thoughts on “Bubbles”

  2. This is fairly beautiful, but fragile. I still like, "I come to the garden alone....." It's sort of two different worlds. Peace.

  3. I like this, especially the end: and someone
    you and i 
    beautiful
    watching
    loving
    and suffering 
    inside of it all.

  4. This poem reminds me of how fleeting joy is. Very soon, all our bubbles burst.

  5. This is beautiful Dr. Beck. My grandmother passed away unexpectedly this week, and this poem is such a wonderful expression of the bittersweetness of our mortality. 

  6. Thank you everyone. You are very kind.

    The other day I was thinking about life and death and the thought came to mind: we are like bubbles. You blow them and they drift and watching them you have no idea how long any one of them will last. Some just seem to to last forever, even when you try to pop them. Others just pop for no reason whatsoever. And I felt that life was like that and it made me want to make the bubbles out of something else, like glass or metal, to protect them. And then I wondered about the consequences of that protection. And then I gave it up those speculations because, in the end, we've got no protection. Bubbles are what we have along with all the pain and joy that comes from loving them so very much.

  7. Must admit- though I know I'm a bubble, I feel more comfortable as a ball-bearing!
    And I like other ball-bearings!
    Ball-bearings of the world unite- lets make this world roll more smoothly!

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