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Leave it all far,
far behind:
Let the wind make
deaf
And your tears make blind
How much sky around
you twists:
How much freedom and
How little time (there)
exists
To decide where you
are going –
How long you will
play
Before your body
starts slowing,
Parabolically
slipping toward
A pause (with a
sheet full
Of empty drag –
slowing, slower).
And how will you
fall? alone,
A solo, free and small
A solo, free and small
(a whistling, driven
stone)?
Will you take
someone’s hand and
Whorl a quiet,
tumbling
Grace? Or will you
stand
On an edge,
shivering with intent
While the air goes
dark
And your chute
splays out, spent
By girls in a tent who'd been needing
A blanket? “Maybe tomorrow,"
Your
head lies, pleading,
And the irony makes
you queasy:
Stopping would be so
hard, but
Not starting is so, so easy.
Not starting is so, so easy.
after the wonderfully weightless, naively perfect, youtube video “Best of B.A.S.E.”
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving.
I decided to watch the video after reading this poem and realized that the emotions in this poem seem to be absent in the video itself. The base jumpers in the video do not give a moment of hesitation (at least that we are shown) and do not seem to consider the thoughts mentioned in this poem. Normally upon watching a video of this sort, I would be excited and invigorated, but this poem drew out fears I realize now that I have shoved aside and buried. This was especially strong for me because I do plan on skydiving within the upcoming months and up until now, it has seemed very distant and abstract to the point where it seemed unreal. It's almost as if I couldn't see what I was putting on the line and therefore could not take it seriously. Although this poem did open me up to anxiety and unease, it also reminded me of the reason behind doing crazy things like this. It is about overcoming fear and pushing past the boundaries we create in our heads. The last lines may be "Stopping would be so hard, but Not starting is so, so easy", but I really feel that the poem ends with the picture when it says "I had fun". It brings to mind those moments before a child goes on his first roller coaster. He is silently terrified, going over all the negative outcomes that may occur. Then finally he overcomes his fear and gets on, only to step off asking to go again.
ReplyDeleteRight on it. I hope you have fun when you go ... life moves; you gotta move with it.
DeleteThe first thing that I noticed about this poem was its structure. Because this poem is about parachuting, the title acts as the point from which someone would jump from and the actual poem is formed in the pattern that one would imagine a parachuter may take to get to the ground swaying back and forth. Having the poem formed this way creates a visual effect of path that someone may take and how its not always a straight line down but its full of uncontrollable directions that may offset one’s way down. The first three groups of lines allude to the unpredictability that occurs in the world all around us, but not to pay attention to it. Allowing yourself to let the “wind make deaf and your tears make blind” makes me think that this phrase is about being able to have hope and blind faith in the never stopping changing world. As we jump and experience the world, we have this “time to play” and experiment before we begin to realize that farther down we are during our jump the further we have aged and less time to achieve what we want to achieve. When you take this chance to jump and allow yourself to not be in control of the factors in your life; you can do it alone and gain all the knowledge for yourself making it useful and successful not having to worry about anyone else. Or you can fall with someone else, in which you can gain the support of another person as you both see and believe in the same thing and are able to understand each other enough to trust the other person. Instead of taking the jump, and being able to accept the unknown, theres also the option of not jumping because first you may have to provide and support others who would be “needing a blanket” before you take a chance into the unseen. The last sentence summarizes the inner conflict that many people face; the decision to believe and accept in the inability to have control over one’s life versus the expectation that your life is planned in one way and once you accept the uncontrollability it is hard to then regain the idea that you as a person have absolute control and that time will stop for you.
ReplyDeleteIt's not about blind faith or ignorance when faced with the unpredictable world around us; on the contrary, it's about being acutely aware of that endless unknown that we only have a brief time to explore. It's about not letting the moment go by (as represented by the girls who unravel his parachute to make a blanket while the author's standing there noncommittally on the cliff-edge).
DeleteThe closest things that I can relate to base jumps are the cliff jumps I do at Lake Nacimiento when the water is high enough (or at least you suspect it is). The lake has spiraling rivers all around it surrounded by high cliffs of thirty to fifty feet. For me, the initial incentive to let it all go and jump is the peer pressure. Everybody is watching you, and while they may not say it to your face you know they’ll think of you as a coward for not jumping. But after that initial fear on the base of the cliff, when you are left to the devices of gravity and there is practically nothing you can do to shift the outcome of your fall, there is a feeling of freedom that comes from being unable to control the next three seconds of your life. It’s somewhat addicting. Once you do it the first time, you are left craving to do it again and again because you know you can go back to exploring that unknown feeling that makes you feel so close to nature, but yet still have a predictable, safe outcome. Hence the additional truth in: “stopping would be so hard, but not starting is so, so easy.”
ReplyDelete