Momentum

The Weather —

Today I stood below masses of
Airborne water —
Clouds eight miles high and
All white outside
But black below.
From underneath the monstrous
Thunderhead, I watched
Huge eddies spiral outward,
So quickly I could track their progress
Easily by eye, could feel the
Hot air rushing upward
Rising in a swirl so fierce
I feared it would lift me
Up with its power;
Felt me weightless, unanchored
As it passed over.

The rising air pulled me outward….

          II

I dread the whirling of this galaxy.

Since life came to this small planet,
Ten times have we spun entirely
Around the galaxy.
We have ten times been slung along behind
Our sun as she sails the hurricane
Of stars that twist within the galactic arms,
Swirling in their rush
Around the central firestorm
At the heaving heart of our Galaxy.

All this, spinning in a circle so vast it is
Almost, not quite, a straight line.

I have scribed that line,
I have pulled that central pull.

Our momentum seems inexorable
Yet we could stop it,
I would stop it all
By simply breaking outward.

          III

The spinning skater opens her arms
Outward
And she slows and stops.

The cheated, grieving sister
Calls her brother
And her reeling,
Angry confusion stops
When he pulls her focus
Outward.

The addict with
His foot on the accelerator
Downward can break the
Circles of spoons and
Needles, candles and
Crack’s desperate euphoria,
With a single decision to break
Outward from the hellish
Chemical pull, and be
Outward.

          IV

The sheer size of those enormous
Towering clouds and the
Brilliant blue distance between them
As the storm front sailed over —
Their size and the space they defined
Filled all the atmosphere —
From the dirt below my feet to the
Faint wisps of vapor I could see
At their upper limits.

And the rising air pulled at me
Upward.
So I looked
Outward.