KISSING IN AIR
It is the silence that is supreme,
the other-worldliness,
with only the wind rush
and the creak of wings.
We’ve mapped and tasked,
ringed our destination,
but today I want it differently –
slip the airbrakes,
watch the variometer climb,
the land slip away,
those chequer-board fields, dry-stone walls,
the ruined barns, field corners, cows, sheep,
the shadows of heather,
the contours of trees;
it should not happen like this.
We rise like condors,
a slow sureness,
catch the next wave from the Edge.
The air is pure,
clean, vital.
We rise higher;
she slips beneath me,
a twitch of her tail controlling pitch.
And then we spin and roll
and lift again
while she sloughs sideways,
her speed gathering.
I rise and rise,
face lifted to the sun,
a spilling of white against the blue.
She is sliding away now,
changing direction, skimming downwards,
Win Hill, Lose Hill,
and deep below the earth the Blue John mines.
We are outlanding in a distant field;
a swish through grass
a gliding to a stop. Together.
The perfect finish.
GPS will find us;
but until then we can sit
and watch the shadows lengthen,
wait for the trailers to come.
Jeremy Duffield