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The Embodied Spirit
Spring 1999   Vol. 15 #2
Spring 1999   Vol. 15 #2

Poems/Not Poems

Sky-Diving

By Rick Fields

 
 

for Gabe

 

Gabe passed into

Became

The light

Last night.

 

At the age of seven

it began

He fought

and laughed

like the wind

 

free and easy

and fierce

 

watching it all

with an innocent awareness

that took my breath

away

 

One day

he asked me

to teach him

to meditate

 

He taught me

instead

 

One of his last wishes

he said

was to jump

from an airplane

into the empty sky

 

No once could say No

Not even the bureaucrats

at the Federal Aviation Administration

 

Strapped chest to chest

to his partner, he stepped into space

 

The coolest part, he told me

from his hospital bed

was the free fall

For fifteen hundred feet

 

He fell

he flew

he spread his arms

wide

like the wings

of the angel he was

and is

 

Now I step out

of the plane

joined to him

into the space

of groundlessness

 

We fall

we fly

through the clear

blue sky

 

No up

No down

No in

No out

 

No fear

 

And this is the coolest

part—

no doubt.

 

∞

 

 

From the Spring 1999 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 15, No. 2)
Text © Marcia Fields 1998-2020
Art © Glen Rogers. The Oracle Trilogy I. 1996. Oil on aluminum. 45″ x 32″. Used by permission.

 

 

Read Rick Fields’ article, “Gabe and the Medicine Buddha”

 

artist-image

Author

Rick Fields (1942–1999) is the author of many books, including How the Swans Came to the Lake: A History of Buddhism in America (Shambhala Publications, 1992) and Fuck You, Cancer & Other Poems (Crooked Cloud Projects, 1998).  Former editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal, he was a contributing editor to Tricycle Magazine. His work is used here by permission of Marcia Fields.

Artist

Glen Rogers creates art inspired by universal symbols, sacred geometry and the infinite forms in nature.

Author

Rick Fields (1942–1999) is the author of many books, including How the Swans Came to the Lake: A History of Buddhism in America (Shambhala Publications, 1992) and Fuck You, Cancer & Other Poems (Crooked Cloud Projects, 1998).  Former editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal, he was a contributing editor to Tricycle Magazine. His work is used here by permission of Marcia Fields.

artist-image

Artist

Glen Rogers creates art inspired by universal symbols, sacred geometry and the infinite forms in nature.

 
 
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