Careful

The wind is sucking me back.

‘I haven’t landed on the top!’ I thought out to my friend. The Wind Woman was playing in the suddenly powerful air, she was not looking but at my thought she rushed to my face.

“You know what to do” she answered.

She’s right. I do know what to do.

There isn’t time to panic. My heart beat and my breathing are steady, I am calm; a benevolent sunset frames my moment. It is too late to pull enough speed bar to get out front. I am landing on the top and I must do so quickly. I do know what to do.

I focus, keeping my left heel hinged to the speed bar, lightly pressing into it, slowing the backward pull; I have my right foot extended to the ground. I am still moving backwards but I have slowed that significantly by keeping an active angle of attack. The ground comes up to me slowly,

“Don’t pull a turtle” she teases me with an infinitesimally brief picture of a recorded moment of feet going over a head; I remember this, as ever so gently, my toe reaches out to press into the dirt.

Both of my feet touch the ground, my flare is almost non-existent, my elbows are digging into my sides, my hands go up with my wing; I am in torpedo. We dance as we kite, I don’t overly fighting the two inches I am still sliding back. A quick glance up shows a steady wing and reminds me which lines are which.

Turning quickly, I reach up, catch, and pull the B lines behind me. Now I am dragged forward, weeds tug at my ankles and the cloud of dust is almost blinding. I have caught her by surprise and I have my success. I scoop in the lines; they slide hotly into my palms, my fingers, until I reach her and literally kneel down on her, the edges flapping and smacking my face.

The Wind Woman laughs in my ear, “Careful.”

‘I don’t think I want to do that again anytime soon,’ is my hissed retort. Even tamed on the ground, even bunched in a ball, the wing is still trying to re-inflate. I give up on a clean bag and stuff the wing with the harness crammed on top.

“Maybe pay a little more attention then.” She suggested.

I couldn’t help it; I answered her with a weak grin. That would be a good idea.

I finish my pack; I throw it on my shoulders and hike over to the van. At the pickup below, my sister’s tandem went well, my instructor’s and my sweetheart’s eyes were saucers and we ate bread sticks while I wished for a nice glass of champagne.

No worries.

Gnarled

A creaking spinning wheel,

spun by gnarled withered hands,

an old woman's knobby voice,

caressed the dry baked lands

Glowing pink sky, a blushing girl’s setting sun

Now clouds deepen to blue twilight.

While that aged bent voice crooned-

Her hoarse expressions of night, light and right,

Her vigil forever kept.

See the old mountains?

The faded roads?

Newly naked fields cut by a slithering necklace?

I finally know.

My story will end, must end

The ghosts will engage in their dances,

My time will fall, the curtains will close

And there will be a last conclusion to my chances.

I leaned back,

Her fingers glide up my face,

She chuckles her rasping giggle as she dried my eyes

She already knew my fate.

I answered and she smiled

waiting as I struggle to frame my heart.

“Thank you for my life. For every single moment of it.”

After the explosion

The boom from the blast deafened my ears. Blinking bleary eyes at the cloud of dust blooming all around, I tried to see through the rubble. Although the landscape had been rendered utterly unrecognizable in the destruction I still sought to find a point of reference.

Clumsy with bewilderment, I scrambled over the shredded bricks and rocks. Tearing my jeans and staining my hands, I made my directionless way over a setting of confusion.

After several ancient minutes I stopped. Hands on my knees, I tried to catch my breath while coughing on the powdery air.

“Stop. Just stop for a moment.” The welcome friendly breeze brushed my cracked chapped lips, stirring the air for a moment. I sat down and leaned against a piece of a wall propped up behind me.

I thought about my options. The wind caressed my arm and my sight followed her to what she had to show me. She formulated in the air, the outline of a small child throwing sand into the surf. As the their profile turned to look at me, the shape shifted and disappeared. How many times have I almost seen that small face?

She returned to touch my eyes once more before she too disappeared.

I thought about work and I thought about Real estate and school. Then I woke up. In the still darkness of the cool room and poofy comfy bed I answered myself;

“Stay the course. Get the CE classes. Get yourself healthy. Get out of the place you are in when you are able…and not before. Go to school. Find out what you need to do to show that you are healthy. Stay the course. There is too little information to make a rash decision. “