Transcript

I’m Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

The pilot announced that we would wait out a passing rainstorm on the runway. I felt my usual frustration at being delayed. But I did not fret. I wasn’t threatened with missing a connecting flight — unlike my neighbor. He audibly sighed and huffed. The cabin buzzed with travelers rescheduling their journeys.

The stewards came through with beverage orders. My neighbor purchased a rum and coke. After a half hour, his agitation arose. When the captain returned with another announcement, he said “Can you believe this, these airlines – they gouge you, but cannot make it through a little storm.” Until then, I was deep in a collection of poetry. “Good book?” “Excuse me?” “Are you enjoying the book?” I said, “Yeah, up until now.” He laughed.

Over the next hour, I learned quite a bit about Charlie, as we eventually took to the sky. He was a structural engineer who inspected bridges underwater. He was off to Seattle for a conference. He was also going through a divorce. On this, I shared my experience. We talked forgiveness and self-discovery and the pain of that sometimes. I even shared a poem from the book in my lap.

Picture two men beneath the coned lights of an airplane, their eyes following the words of a poem. It was a different kind of “bro” moment. After I finished, he sat in the silence. He then asked about me and my profession. I, in a rare moment of self-denigration, said, “Well, I do not fix bridges.” I told him I was a poet. He barked, “Are you kidding? Be proud. That was beautiful, man. I shore up bridges, but you shore up the heart. That was like therapy in the sky.” We joked about poetry readings on airplanes. As the plane landed, he said, “Seriously, thank you.”

Sometimes it takes hearing the words of others to realize our value. Stranded on the tarmac, I stopped questioning my choice to become a poet. Today’s beautiful, incantatory poem contains a rich message of communal nurturance, how we soften each other’s fall, as we learn to acknowledge our purpose in the universe.

In Which I Become (Skywoman)
by Kenzie Allen

Let me           grasp                                        roots                                all around me
                                         to ease the fall.                                                Let the fall be

                           gentled                                 by the teeming flock,
                           their wings                         tender, interlocked,

         let me mother earth                          as the earth
         mothered me.            Let the children       forge

a new pantheon             between them,                            a balance
of dark and light,            a history                                          given breath,

         formed from the soil at our feet.
  Let it not be made easy,   but be made

           beautiful,                                                       waterways                    treacherous and
                                   generous in their might.                   I did not fall
 
    without purpose.                                                                                It was no mistake
which saw me         leave the sky;            this is the story

                                         in which I throw myself       into the blue 
              with my whole heart, to see                                                   to the world beyond.

                      The world at my back names me, and so do I.
Let me             make a new legacy,                                                               a becoming to

tell stories about                                                          around a strong fire,
She Who                       brought the medicine,                                       nourishing our people,
inspired                          the animals                      in their goodness
to create                        the land.                            Let me be remembered

                                                                                                       for all   I made,         and  
                                                                                                                                                cherished     
                                                                                                                                                                      for all I gave. 

"In Which I Become (Skywoman)" by Kenzie Allen from CLOUD MISSIVES © 2024 Kenzie Allen. Used by permission of Tin House.