PARACHUTE

When you’re pulling and pulling on the metal ring

that your instructor told you to leave alone

because it’s your spare, and it’s not billowing out

like a life-saving cloud above you either, while below

the crazy-quilt of fields is expanding rapidly,

zooming up to be friends with you

and no one else is tacking

close to save you, and let’s face it, up in the wild blue

there’s nothing to grab onto to save yourself,

you might as well take my advice,

throw your arms wide like an eagle and, embracing

the ground rushing towards you and inevitable death,

just fly.

               The insane thing would be not to enjoy it

when you have nowhere to return to and no way

of getting there, so in your own life remain calm,

fall into the world as into an embrace

and remember all of us are falling, though some of us

are falling more quickly than others.