Ultralite

Floating like a dragonfly under afternoon clouds
the long fabric wings of the ultralite bend upward
like the wooden arms of a puppet beneath a painted sky

It is your first flight around the perimeter of the lake
The small motor hums urging blue wings higher
into simmering air daring the ebb and flow of invisible currents
A nestling in early flight the small plane rises and sinks
dips and turns searching for steady air

Holding you up with short breaths I watch from the shore
My shoulders sink with your dipping rise with your lifting
The sun clouds my eyes as you brush the tallest pine
and I squint you into focus

You are well above the treetops now turning at the lake's far end
Your passage is smooth and precisioned like the flight of the condor
as he circles high above the bare rocks of the fissured crag
My shoulders relax for a moment I watch your wingtips
rise and fall rise and fall in unison with my breath

Suddenly the canvas wing
spills into itself
Aluminum framing
folds into the fusilage
like the arm of the puppet
whose strings have snapped
You are plummiting wing first into the lake

There is no sound now
No hum of motor
No whirr of propeller
No rhythm for my breathing

Your plane is a limp jumble of blue skin and metal
From where I stand I can see no movement except for the fading circles
rippling toward me pushing up the wrinkled surface of the lake
Even the clouds have quieted the sun

I search the wreckage from my lonely shore
But there are only shadows upon the water
They form silently into hollows and creases
blurring into my mind like fence posts in a cold fog

One of the shadows grows tall and splits like two arms reaching
Waving waving waving at me
Pulling back my breath
Giving me back my life

Florida State Poets Association 2001 Contest
First Place Category 5