PLAYING WITH AIR
As parasitic stems embroider the oak –
a paraglider pilot begins his attachment.
As a gate brays open –
he manoeuvres the risers,
is a puppeteer with his marionette;
an Aeolian harpist.
Now that he is the bold one,
his canopy cowers and billows
in fits and starts.
Harnessed and helmeted –
so tiny, so new against Cretaceous rock! –
he runs, at last towards the vagaries
of chalk’s precipice:
sprung like a child….
In this moment, he is one with a
hiss of distance between sky and sea –
like a soaring pterodactyl,
like a gravitating angel.
But he finds himself caught between
the currents of abandon and control.
Copyright © JENNY JOHNSON