Crab Bucket

Pratchett’s metaphor, not mine

a gravitational well impossible

to escape, whose brim eludes

each so desperate to ascend

blind to those deposed in their quest

none escape collective desperation

Forget the bucket.

The bucket never got anyone anywhere

good, it just made a prison

from a pail

Forget the bucket walls

aren’t always for scaling sometimes

they protect us, remind us

where we belong

safe-shielded instead of churning

that sometimes rest is better

than unheeding action we forget

to pause before we grab

we grab tight, forgetting we pinch

Forget the bucket.

Some things are not meant to be kept.