Head first over the precipice she plunges,
Freefalling into a different age,
No safety harness to impede her progress,
As her life speeds past to another page,
No mayday calls or rescue boat launched to find her,
Nor helicopter circling to seek out where she’d be,
While over the edge she was falling, falling,
To drown in the depths of the aging sea,
At the edge there’d been no warning,
No easy route on which to stick,
So she’d trundled on through life oblivious
Of the inevitable path that time would pick,
Into the sea of age she was falling, falling,
Life passing before her in a flash,
No outstretched net below to catch her,
No one had pushed, there’d be no splash.
Diane Scantlebury
