Poetry2
gull with fish, photo by Mary Stebbins, 3/05 Niagara
Falling
Lurch of fear: the heart tumbles loose, plummets
into freefall. If only I can remember what I know. Remember
fast, before I smash or wake. Never have I wanted to be an enemy
of birds. Love, only love,
drove me to collect their wings, feathers
and hollow bones. Their shriveled scaly feet
bony beaks and skulls with their huge hollow eye
sockets. Only from the dead
birds. Never would I harm a living feather. I pinned
the wings, spread, on boards, hung them on the walls
around me. Admired
them, the simple aerodynamics of bone, flesh
and feather. At night, I stretched and flexed the wings
and waxed
them to my body, flapped around the dark house practicing.
I tossed myself from the table, the shed roof,
the second story. At last, from a cliff, I launched
myself into their private sky. Leaden
flesh grew light as I stepped into sudden air,
all that space around me. Like the vulture, aloft
for hours. Just stretch out, just shift
the heart. Empty. Lift. Soar, circle and glide. Ride thermals.
Trees shrink away, the rivers all shine and ribbon-flutter.
The earth tilts below. O feral heart,
only the air matters, only the wind.
Mary Stebbins
For Keith
available
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