Archive
06/30/09
Aerobatics
This whitish-gray-skied Tuesday a.m., The barely rippling, silver-stippled lake before me Is a vast aerial proving ground For a squadron of planes practicing intricate maneuvers. Perhaps they're rehearsing for Saturday's July Fourth celebration.
Their complex, byzantine strafings, Their frenetic twists, erratic lifts and dives, Turning back on themselves, repeatedly, Resemble those of the fighters I've seen in battle sequences Captured in historical footage, recreated in WWII movies.
Only, this is the last day of June 2009; The location is the peaceful village of Lake Nebagamon; And the highly skilled, aerobatic flying machines are birds, Northern rough-winged swallows at early-morning feeding, Zeroing in on flies, mosquitoes — any airborne insects.
At times, zooming so close to the surface, They become indistinguishable from their shifting shadows, Their shadows from chromatic patterns of ever-changing lake. It's astonishing that they never collide, Never crash into the water, never cease making their passes.
That I'm fascinated, exhilarated, by all this activity, Comes as no surprise to my eyes, my blood, my psyche. After all, when time is of negligible consequence And I'm doing nothing but opening myself to Earth's workings, Miraculous wonders like this disclose themselves, If only my senses are capable of seizing, translating, Illuminating unnoticed mosaics of ineffable grace — Nature inviting me to unmask the complex, the byzantine, Divine its ordinary sublimities, Enter into a dialogue between earth, air, lake, and myself.
06/30/09
|
|||
|
|||
