Falling
by Kate Cayley

I was putting off God. A task crossed out
each night like laying aside clothing
I can't find time to repair.

My children speak to me from the next room
and I pursue their voices through the house.

I walk my son to the drugstore to buy hoops
for his ears. There's an old man in the doorway

and I give him less than I've spent on the earrings.
My son begins to walk home

in the opposite direction. He is old enough.
The man calls after me do not lose him.

When my son was three, the garbage truck driver tied
a loop of string to the handle of the truck's horn

and let him pull it. I don't know what to hope for
except that he will be blessed

with unnecessary kindness, offer it in kind.
He disappears at the corner.

I was still putting off God. The sky began
the ritual of evening and I walked
more quickly, refusing.

"Falling" is a poem about moral refusal, about how, in living, we defer our absolute responsibilities. It's easy to ponder loving your neighbour as yourself, and, in practice, almost impossible to achieve. I know abstractly that other lives weigh as much as my own, but I put off the full significance of this knowledge, as I put off the possibility of faith in my own life, because of what truly having faith would actually mean.

Kate Cayley on "Falling"

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