Icarus over Issaquah

A birthday gift on turning seventy:

a leap from a mountain named Tiger to

hover raptor-like in thermals above Issaquah,

and see the length of Lake Sammamish,

 

and on the north horizon, Fuji-like,

the snow cone volcano tamely named Mount Baker.

 

My instructor calls in my ear, “lean left” and smoothly

we roll, and there rises Seattle to the west.

Looking down brings a

rush of exhilaration—my feet seem to tread

at speeds my creaky knees would never cede

upon the spiky tops of Pinus ponderosa, Sitka spruce

and Douglas fir, madrone and lodgepole—

jade, sea green, and emerald.

 

A graceful loop to gain some altitude,

and we, like mating dragonflies, come ’round

to face the mighty massif, the white-maned Tahoma,

(Rainier to most of us),

fifty miles away, yet immanent as a tsunami to a clam.

 

We band of gliders, twelve or more, must look like

moths around the peak aflamed by late-day sun.

Just one more wheel, one more...

A bright mowed meadow, plumb below, bids us descend

and dodge the pride of Icarus.

Reluctantly the valley grows wide, humans evolve,

we gently graze the grass,

and stand like gymnasts dismounting the bar,

I a tad wobbly but thrilled.

The bucket-list is down by one,

a childhood reverie molts to memory.

 

Brother Stavros