How Far We Will Be Borne
Presque Isle, Maine
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To say yes to wind is to know
the freedom of the samara spinning,
untethered trust without propeller or wing,
no thrust of engine fire to defy
the whim of the wild currents.
There is only resigning to the roughshod push
and the rushing magnificent plunge.
Helium-filled Double Eagle Two
will do in six days something
never done before:
reach the Continental shore
from a humble Presque Isle field
by yielding to the unseen
stream of sky, a bobbing twig
fragile in the cloud-froth rapids
sweeping across the immensity
of blue on layers of swallowing blue.
To be carried to Miserey,
to land alive in a field of wheat--
this is what we were made for,
to look eagerly over the lip
of our woven baskets to see
the fields patterned plaid
beneath our rocking nest,
wondering how far we will be borne
until our ballast fails and we
bump down, skidding our heels
in the warm brown furrows of earth,
and there to see our stories like seeds
lodge deep, grow old, and blossom into trees.