Jack Henry

gaining on us

they say once a snowball gains
a certain amount of downhill momentum
you cannot stop it;
hypothetically, the snowball will consume anything
in its path;
trees, homes, people, lives;
the snowball will only stop
when it collides with forces bigger,
stronger, more durable than
the force a snowball
brings;

my father continues to build momentum;

my sister and mother called,
said, it’s too much;
they said, you need to do something;
as if i have any skillset

to manage crazy;

i talked to my father this weekend;
he seemed coherent;
except;
he spoke about flying gliders,
as a boy,
in upstate New York,
as if it was yesterday;

when the snowball hits and rumbles
to a stop, there is devastation,
there is death, there is pain;

when i was a kid i flew in a glider,
with my mother; i sat on her lap;
my job was to pull the knob that released
the glider from the tow plane;
i did it well;
we soared above Wisconsin, and the dairy farms
and green hills; we soared above the noise of
a crazy world; free within the clouds, heavy on
the wind;

how i wish i was in a glider now, high above
it all;

but i am here on the mountain, standing before
the snowball, trying to stop something

that is inevitable;