Laminations (poem)

I remember seeing the old-fashioned sketch

pads, transparent layers stacking

image upon images, delivering

a sequence, a scene, with a quick thumb

flip. And so it is – you start on the first

page, see yourself there by the window

frame, holding to the sash for

dear life, afraid you’ll fall, knowing you

can’t fly. The sky is a wide and wonderful

place, but it’s not yours to taste. And then

comes the second lamination. The landscape

has changed because you can see you have

wings now, and all you need to do to test

them is let go. This seems impossible to

avoid. The next clear sheet and what you thought

was a window, a wall, a house, all of it

is just a cloud’s shadow, shifting ambiguously. You

are already flying, already hovering in mid

air. You thought the challenge was to stay safe,

or to let go – but now you see that the story

asks an even harder question. Can

you accept that you are already floating? The next

frame will be the last, summing up what you

do – either  swim through the blue in the full glory of

who you always were or – huddled again, against

an illusion, wishing to fix yourself against

a ground that never shifts. Oh beautiful one, I

wonder if you will choose to accept

what exists, and let yourself loose

to the gifts of the wind?

 

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