Backing Down The Ladder - Softcover

Fleming, Andrew T.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1892262002 ISBN 13: 9781892262004

Publisher: New Visions Press, 1998

Synopsis

A book of poetry for those who want to find their own voice, sing their own songs, and live with authenticity, even if it means Backing Down The Ladder.

About this title

About the Author

Former Yale basketball captain, Harvard MBA, and ex-corporate climber at three Fortune 500 companies, author and poet Andrew Fleming today happily teaches and consults at the Center for Ethics at Atlanta's prestigious Emory University.

Now 40, and a live-in House Director at Emory's Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity House, Fleming writes of work, love, and community-- and offers a revealing look at the choices and challenges of a mid-life transformation.

Andy also leads workshops in corporate, academic, and church settings on life path discernment and leadership.

His next book Getting Ahead Without Losing Heart, will be available from Frederic C. Beil, Publisher-- June 1999.

You can send Andy e-mail at: aflemin@emory.edu

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Roots and Branches

Now that I look at it

with new eyes

one of the largest trees

in the forest

a fallen victim of what

I do not know

I stare for a long time

at its roots:

the overlapping, criss-crossing, chicken-fingered

chaos that blindly scratched through the earth

running into and over itself

against and around the rocks and stumps and

God knows what else, growing still,

contradictions,

tangles,

obstacles and all

taken into its own brown black

pulsing tapestry.

Then I look at the branches

and see no contradictions,

no tangles

and I think it hardly

seems fair

how easy their task is

and how much glory they receive

compared to their brother sister roots

but how dull really their life seems now,

only air and light to deal with as they rise

straight and stiff toward the sky.

The darkness, the obstacles,

the sheer creativity

required to grow in the earth

make the underground work

seem more interesting

as I stand here this day

thinking of branches and roots

and how I shall live.

I once aspired to nothing but sunlight,

fresh air, and an upward path--

but instead of reaching heaven

grew hellishly stiff instead.

So now I want to lose myself

sucking on and thrusting through

all that is moist and rich in the dark,

in the earth, in me

and I do not care how many times

I contradict and cross over

my tangled self again.

In the House Inside My Soul

In the basement where I go

in the house inside my soul,

amidst machines of spinning steel

I forsake a shrinking self:

Why did you do what you just did?

Will you ever measure up?

Then I pole vault to the attic

passing by the living room

and dream flashing constellations

to forestall impending doom.

But my attic has no windows

and my visions soon exhale;

I am alone with my breathing

in the air so sweetly stale

of balloon animals dying

body first, then head and tail.

Do I dare walk downstairs

peel the plastic

sit in chairs--

in the room I long to go

in the house inside my soul.

Edition details

• Publisher: New Visions Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1892262002
• ISBN 13: 9781892262004
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Burton Paul
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 116
• Editor: Weber Lana N.