I had a dream I could fly. –Priscilla Ahn
The Blue Angels leave five white tracks overhead.
They are going eight hundred miles per hour,
the announcer says. Below them, I am going
nowhere. They fly closer to each other than my knees
are to the pier. Eighteen inches apart. What to make
of these details. The announcer spills them
through the radio like my brother’s dog
spills the half empty beer beneath the lawn chair.
It seems important, noteworthy, but later,
these points will not touch me the way your hands would.
It is more something to nod at, to say back and forth
to each other, to marvel at aloud. As if it could
bring us closer together, this trading of numbers
and shaking of heads. But the day is warm
and the body can’t help but tremble when the jets push
through the blue above us, displacing sound
and rearranging the air. It is not the speed
that impresses me or even the nearness
of wingtip to nose, but the way that over two million
of us have gathered to watch them fly
in close triangles and peel apart again.
How we long for greatness, how we’re drawn
to the fastest, the loudest, the best. How we long
to come together, to connect. I am not
the best, love. I am tired, getting old. I am
wrinkled and sun-speckled, forgetful and soft.
I am no longer fast, was never the fastest.
I am not strong. I’m defeated. I’m less.
But I am open to love, to being still.
I am ready to drop the stream of facts
and touch (is it possible) what is left.
Again, clever title that leads to the emotional heart of the poem. I like what’s here and i love how it starts, the “i am going nowhere…” but I have trouble with the last two stanzas, at least where they appear. They read like a bit of an anticlimax, though I think the admissions (or defenses) belong in the poem, could easily slip into an earlier part of the poem. The ending seems obvious to me, the “…how we long to come together…” idea where you are still talking about the planes. Don’t know exactly how to manage all that but then you are a word magician. Just pull a blue angel out of your hat!
oh my goodness. yes, yes, yes. i adore this poem. xoxo.
Like those blue angels, this poem peels away and then circles back. (“I am not strong. I’m defeated. I’m less./But I am open to love. To being still.”) Was it only yesterday’s poem you wrote about breaking each other, rather than communion bread? Here again, the being broken connoting the kinda strength that matters. Rather than like powerful blue angels eighteen inches apart, yet never touching, “I am ready to…touch…the way your hands would.”
I’ve never heard you mention you’re a weaver, yet lookit how deftly you’ve done so, here.
ps. love the down-to-earth(!) touch of your brother’s dog spilling the half-empy beer. (did his dog begin lapping up the spilt beer?)
No beer sipping … It slipped through the pier slats …
Thanks for the reading … Your comment makes it sound like a better poem than it is … Love the weaving you’ve done!