The Cosmic Teeter Totter By Debbie Baumgartner

The Cosmic Teeter Totter

By Debbie Baumgartner

I undressed in public tonight

On the bank of the danube

The sun was setting on the water

As my love emerged from his swim

We went arm in arm up the path

How is this our life?

I said with a skip and a giggle and a kiss

I had a friend who suffered a lot

Many difficulties

Death, illnesses, hardships

It seemed to me that she was

Tipping the scales in my favor

That somehow my ease

My good fortune

Was heaped up to balance her misfortune

I thought about that tonight

As the warm air hit my bare skin

With the cool delicious water

Peeling away with my swimsuit

I dressed slowly

Savoring the unfamiliar sensation

Watching a naked man

Who looked like the blonde version of Jesus

Saunter across the field

So much carefreeness

Women sitting on their blankets

With their hookahs and burkas

Children running and laughing

Their parents contentedly watching nearby

Young people in groups large and small

Enjoying a drink and each other's company

There were swans

Imagine that! Swans!

Swimming near the bank of the Danube

In the pink dying light

The scales are tipped

Ridiculously, I thought

The shadow life

The starving, the being-starved, people

Shot down like ducks in a carnival game

As they run for food

The children in the mines

Digging for the rare metals

For this cursed device in my hand

Their lives like an anvil

On the cosmic teeter totter

Causing me to soar

Light as a feather

I want to want to tip it back

To participate somehow in this

Unimaginable devastation

Or to relieve it

But instead I’ve sprouted wings

I can see the playground

From my seat in the clouds

And, God forgive me,

I turn my head away

#poetry #despair

#tellmeaboutdespairyoursandiwilltellyoumine

Response to my friend’s poem/questions: Is this fair?

First, let me say that when I lived in community I absorbed so much pain. Someone’s illness, Black Lives Matter and the effect of the killings on my black friends, Gaza and the injustices there and its effect on my Palestinian friends. I felt it all because if I didn’t recognize it then how could I live in common with those I loved. This is what I thought. A bit like how now, I wonder how I can enjoy a meal when children are starving.

But life goes on

Despite the horrific ICE raids and separating families, sending fathers/mothers/children to prison in other countries—even against court orders—much like how folks were sent to concentration camps. I feel so helpless/hopeless.

Before I came to live in a Tiny House in my daughter’s backyard, I craved distraction, some reason to turn my head away and forget despair. Unbelievably, COVID helped. I jumped on my bike and rode across the country. Away from newspapers, radio, and headlines, without service on my phone and riding the backroads all alone—I was able to get away. This is drastic. Once in Oregon, I cooked up the idea of staying and voila! I relocated for 9 months to the West Coast, living in the same town as my daughter. She had her baby, my grandson; I biked up the hill to see her; I met new people; got a job; got an apartment and a roommate. I got distracted by a new life.

My heart and soul settled down. The injustices didn’t seem as intense. I found peace.

Part of me wished I could feel the pain and sometimes I did, but mostly I could take a walk and leave it behind. The huge, towering trees in Eugene helped me forget. I still loved everyone and cared, but I didn’t have to live in despair.

It helped that Trump was out of office.

Come November 5 of 2024 and it all rushed back at me. This was going to be unbelievably hard, again. And, with the wars in Gaza and Ukraine and Sudan and Yemen and . . . All the people working so hard just to live and then I see Musk, DOGE, and the other oligarchs sucking that life up like vacuum cleaners, like Rich People Black Holes. What can I do?!

No Kings Marches, signing online petitions, donating to PBS. None of this seems to matter.

Then, and this happens a lot, the kids wander over. I live in Michigan now and there’s 2 grandsons, and they make messes, drag in sand and bugs, demand cookies, crackers, that I read a book or get down the babushka on the shelf for them to play with. I have to make food; I have to go to work; I have to wash the dishes; I have to write or else my head will explode; I have to watch the sunset, ride my bike through the piney forest, and smell the sap or glimpse a deer or gaggle of turkeys. There’s coffee/tea to drink and chairs for patio sitting. This is also life.

God knows the cosmic teeter-totter, the back and forth, the up and down, the good and bad. The song says he has the whole world in his hands—with no mention if the world is falling apart, is safe, happy or sad. We can hold all of this as human beings. The despair and the rare treat. The kiss, the sunset, the swans . . . the child slaves, the starvation and random bombings, the authoritarian hubris. The struggle.

Mostly, the love and caring, but also the times when we are fed up and had enough. It’s okay to not be okay—or okay. To embrace the cosmic teeter-totter. Thanks Debbie for a GREAT poem.