so quick, so quick--
and it's over in appreciation's bloom
i run and kiss her- glad to be alive with you
adrenaline spread across
the slice of time i am
this life affirmed in downward rush
of vision swallowing the whole
un worded awe
'i cannot be a poet now'
from reading on the drive there:
absurd psychology, it marvels at me
similizing downward flight to that of two rakshasas thrown
from Angada's leap on Lanka
palace tower kicked, another symbol falling
likened to Ravana's ego doomed,
ordering to **** that messenger
who revealing imminence alights the fate
of endings we all share,
how could i guess
i blindly follow orders--
the ten-headed ego writhes resistance
at the incapacity in me, the failure
to speak meaningfully,
or trounce the message-bearer
routing through the speech
of others only intoning at ten thousand feet:
om earth sky cosmos
contemplating that original love
perfect fullness within and out
let us realize our unity
om peace peace peace
at the silence in the noise
eudaimonic under breath as engine climbs
in moments (i don't know how i got here)
i chant remembrance into time--
the solar warmth a touch of ease
amid anticipation's quandary--
he has a helmet unlike me
"Don't let those two mess with you,"
the camera-headed lady says to me before she jumps
her finger wagging some distant familiarity
of jests to lighten fears or twirl them in the air--
so cold the wind and thin to singe the lungs--
his body hanging out the door waiting for
her flight into his falling grasp the plane rocks into the slamming door
the door... is closed again for me to kneel beside
and think of next and after what has come before
inching 'i love you' at the back of the plane
where crouched the one who whisked me here
in mystery to allow unveiling here today
from reading epic only--gazing down--"no signs" to give away
the open spaces felt and bright treeless vast
and getting out of car with closed eyes--
"surprise!" and there sits a plane or twenty over there
and "SKYDIVING" written on the door
which i am happy to dismiss as we walk the other way,
she wouldn't have the guts to surprise me with this--
but yes we turn around and here we are
with sky-crazies in pictures peace and love on palms
strapped tandem falling living back still far from earth
we sign the papers under those smiles
faintly listen to the video squawking 'court of law'
and 'choice of your own free will'
paid and signed away we harness in and search for fear
windex for the goggles (but how clearly will i see?)
my ***** are safe from straps or so i think
i'm conscious of the need to quip
and John and Paul--our parachutes--
become a double headed meet-your-maker Pope
for me to flatly joke about.
"Pain is good," says the pilot as
we learn the way to fall
and pile seven in a tiny cockpit,
we're off the ground before i know it
i 'woot' to sign my joy. as much as to assent
conversations of little more than two lines
keep us feeling human as we swallow
popping in our ears,
--she'll have to keep her gum--
smoke stacks, mines, gray grids of residential scapes
seem to **** the green from curve of earth.
faintly i recall ecology, pulled into the sun
stumbling to cage the meaning of it all
a sentence forms into a trailing nonsense.
my breathing tests the press of straps on waist and chest
deafened, chanting. cease to chant.
the meaning overcome with wonderment beyond my mind.
am i missing something?
thank the pilot as a "Sir,"
"Door!!" "How long?!" "When!?!" --i hear the buckles faintly clicking,
the distance imperceptible a rush
of air i am infused with global letting be
the ball of tight electric fear
a nostril flare of otherworldly falsity--
i am here.
and tilting, instructions gibberish, shouting go! go!!
a kneeling fetal hop into the gust of void
so full the eyelash burns horizonal
.
the lines in italics constitute a paraphrase of the Gayatri Mantra