Descent: A Poem

The descent of an airplane is a lot like diving into a pool.

There is the pause.

Once you were moving through air smoothly like hawks gliding in the sky

And in this moment you know it will happen

As your vision moves from the children splashing in the pool to the diving board

It seems to touch the heavens

connected to the ground you stand on only by the metal ladder

Like a kite touching the skyline, yet the string is in your hand.

Then, the wings angle downward

Like toes hesitantly gripping the cool metal of a diving board ladder.

The rumbling is felt in your bones

As the wings move up, then release down,

The engine’s deep voice becoming more intense by the second

As each step takes you farther and farther from the land of the living.

Your palms sweat

Your heart falls like in a roller coaster

Adrenaline is your only companion.

Then, the path is clear,

The air growls under the weight of the plane as the wheels approach the ground

As your walk on the diving board,

You feel like you are walking the plank

The sound of silence is thunderous here

Step, step, step until you are at the edge.

Then, another pause

Within seconds, it is inevitable

A past, a present, and a future

A cause and an effect

How is it that life keeps moving when this moment feels like an eternity

Like a leaf drifting through water

Inertia is destiny.

But then,

The delicious feeling of falling

Vulnerable to forces only partially understood

You could laugh a full belly laugh at the absurdity of it all

As the wheels greet the concrete of the runway and propel you home

As the air liberates you from its warm embrace into the welcoming arms of the water

And then you are there,

With the cars and people that seemed like part of a child’s dollhouse only seconds ago

With the splashing children, their laughter no longer a distant sound

You can only look up

And remember

That once you had been close to the sun

Tried to touch it

But as it blazes through the sky

Untouched by your presence

You can only feel mortal and smile and shake your head

Now that you have descended.