Parachute

Parachute

by Stanley Snaith

He poises a moment and looks down at the earth far under,

Featureless, small, and those steep miles between;

His spirit shrinks, but he grips and with closed eyes throws

Bodily outward, his breath is snacht up as he goes

Hurtling, a blunt weight, downward through a tense storm

Of air that numbs him with a dim drug of thunder

Till his being burns dazed as a windy spark.

That lifts him to an abrupt stillness, and then A pull

Thought clears, his body loosens, glides smooth as a gull

Through deepening calms with smells of the land warm;

The land that grows bright with returning green and gold,

Down to firm, century-anchored earth, to pace

In safety amid the treacheries of space.