flying

Learning to Fly Without Loving to Crash

I can’t imagine going back
To dodging the booby traps
After flying low to scope the landscape
After scraping treetops on the descent

It’s been a while since the last crash landing
Losing bearings, instruments failing
Natives rescuing with bucket brigades
I loved when gravity took over

When I signed the armistice confession
The civilians ceased to starve and burn
In justice prevailed the open hearts
Into the wild blue yonder they ran

Now I’m left with this sensation of falling
Not in any particular direction
It’s more of a freedom pitched flight
Leveling to the upright postures

I’m learning to fly again
Without the weightless flex
Without a net
Without the deep love of crashing

Fly Fly Brooklyn Birdie

Thundering upstairs neighbor
Where are you going?
Walking back and forth
From midnight to morning.

Your footsteps betray
A sense of unease
A life’s work undone
Malignant ambition.

Is it a family dynamic
That’s left you pacing the miles?
Your mother perhaps who lives downstairs.
A man burdened as someone’s child.

Someday you’ll fly lighter than air
Not even stomp up the stairs
To the third floor, one farther away
Then glide off the rooftop and soar.

Or perhaps your mother may drag you
Flapping and squawking
Up to the top of the nest
And fling you out over the streets of Brooklyn.
If she knows what’s best.