Heart-Shaped Parachute

I am posting a poem. I never intended to put anything like this up here when I started my blog, but I've recently been inspired.

I've always considered myself the luckiest man in the world. I've lived an adventurous or fool-hardy life, depending on perspective. I am now convinced that all of my adventures, all of my risk-taking, was to prepare me, to give me the courage, to jump into my life's greatest adventure - my life with Meegan.

If you read this post in the next few days, whisper a wish of good luck for me. I will be asking her to marry me.

Heart-Shaped Parachute

Even the bravest men

rush toward the door and hope

that the momentum of the line

carries them past their fear

and shame of fear.

Then, before it can be real

I am out

into the dizzy, noisy, weightless waiting

for the very hand of fate

to yank me upward.

Just the same,

carried by the momentum of the kiss,

the touch,

the deep impetus of things said with lips,

but without words,

I pushed past my fear

into your blue sky smile

falling toward the warm earth and amber sunlight

of your eyes.

In the dizzy, noisy, weightless waiting,

I asked you,

“What do you want from me?”

“Everything”, you replied.

I wanted to ask,

but lacked the courage to ask

or maybe, to know,

“Will you take it from me

or share it with me?”

The trust I have placed in a parachute

is so small

compared to the trust I must have

in your heart.

(© 2007 SPH. All Rights Reserved.)