Essays, Art and Plays by Dan

https://thehaikufoundation.org/revirals-469/

The poem –

autumn dusk Schrödinger's cat on the fence
—Colleen M. Farrelly
Failed Haiku issue 102, September 2024

My essay 

Dan Campbell—alive and dead, seen and unseen, always on the edge…:

A Soliloquy by Schrödinger’s Cat about the Poem: autumn dusk Schrödinger’s cat on the fence

I’ve spent my life in the alleys, where the world’s edges blur and the shadows speak a language only a cat like me understands. You see, out here, we live by a different set of rules. Daylight is for fools and housecats, the soft and the naive. It’s dusk where the truth shows itself, if you know how to look.

Autumn dusk—there’s something about it. The way the air thickens with cold, how the wind whispers like it knows all your secrets. The sky, bruised purple, and me, I’m here on the fence, balanced between one world and the next, like I’ve always been.

Schrödinger’s cat. Yeah, I heard about that one. A cat in a box, alive and dead at the same time. Sounds like a joke, but I get it. I am that cat. I walk through this city like a ghost, here and not here, real and unreal. Some folks see me, but most don’t. And that suits me fine.

But that box… that dang box they talk about. Is it any different from the city? It’s a trap, but it’s also shelter. A prison, but a place where you can be both alive and not.

Out here, we prowl the line. The in-between. The humans, they don’t get it. They build their fences, their walls, trying to keep the danger out, but I’m always on the edge of it. Balancing. One paw in the light, one in the dark. That’s the way it is, that’s the way it’s gotta be.

Maybe that’s why autumn gets to me. It’s the season of in-betweens. The air hangs heavy with endings, but there’s always a beginning just behind it. The line between one and the other? You can’t see it. But you can feel it, deep in your gut.

And I wonder… if you’re always on the edge, do you ever really live? Or are you just stuck, like Schrödinger’s cat, waiting for someone to open the box and tell you what you are?

I’ll never know. But maybe that’s the point. The not knowing. The not needing to know. Just the fence beneath my paws, the wind in my fur, the city humming its low, dangerous lullaby. I’ll keep walking the line, ‘cause that’s all I’ve ever known. Both alive and dead, seen and unseen, always on the edge, where the mystery of it all keeps me going.