A leap of faith? Oct. 11, 2012

  

This poem came about the same time as she submitted her resignation, almost an after thought after several weeks of speculation and several poems full of outrage and indignation.

This poem is none of that, only an intense sense of resignation, a sense of ending and moving on.

Her wings are open and ready for flight. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath before the inevitable leap – that moment when everything for once is still and calm, and her heart empty.

In some ways, this is a leap of faith, a hope that she will eventually land somewhere else without the emotional issues she leaves behind.

 Unlike some of her previous poems, the speaker is not offering advice, but rather is making an observation, describing that brief moment of peace before she takes flight, having clearly resigned herself to her fate. She has emptied herself of feeling. This is not about doing the right thing, so much as accepting the inevitable.

She is not looking back at the past with regret or even at the future with expectations. She has finally reached that point she had attempted to reach before being “in the moment,” where as in the past she always got distracted and could not.

She is on the brink of change, and ready to flap her wings and fly away.

The poem seems to be speaking to others beyond herself, less a statement of outrage as was the “Anything” poem earlier, than a statement about how she has emptied herself of feeling, and is numb, feeling neither affection nor revulsion, needing not to have to carry the emotional baggage that would hinder her flight – as she must fly away.

This poem details the very moment when she is about to take flight, perched no doubt on a high place, eyes closed before her leap, her wings spread, a moment of calm as she knows she will leave everything behind – as she has had to do before, and perhaps hopes she won’t have to do again.

Since she posts this poem at the same time that she is quitting the job, the tone is one of final acceptance after a week or more of struggling against it. Although it is unclear where she will go or what she will do, she only knows she has to leave.

After so many “loud” poems full of outrage, the quiet of this poem is deafening. Like the shock wave after a series of explosions, reverberating with echoes of the unsaid past. She does not need to say what she had said already. In fact, the poem suggest she had reached a place of tranquility, all decision made, all of the conflicts resolved, not even the need for a look back.

As short a poem as this is, it is also among her most powerful – that last deep breath before a leap she needs to take, not knowing what comes next, not caring either, no longer worried about how she got there, poised, ready, and in the next moment, off into some world beyond.

 

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