"Like a Thunderbolt She Falls"

I was 12, and something grabbed me in Lord Alfred Tennyson's Eagle poem; the language is sensory food: crooked hands, azure world, wrinkled sea - delicious!

***

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

***

Yesterday, the last line ran through my mind while I brushed off grit & leaves sticking to sweaty skin, and tried to stanch the blood running into my sock. Two scraped knees, an abraded thigh, and banged up forearms. But no broken bones; grateful!

Friends note I'd be safer running with an air-bag, or at least on sidewalks. 

Hard to assure them that the terrain doesn't trip me; okay, it was a branch that hooked my right foot mid-flight - but mostly it's a simple matter of forgetting I cannot fly, forgetting that my feet are earth bound. 

So for a time I will be more cautious when running steep trails, I'll keep my eyes locked on the terrain within a couple of yards, I'll slow down on a steep descent, I'll even stop skipping over rocks, and actually ensure I can set my foot down without twisting an ankle - I will. But I can't promise that it won't happen again, because when I'm in that moment of flight - somewhere between heaven & earth - running without any thought or care - movement, breath, sky, trees, grass - legs becoming inhales & exhales, soaring in my mind's eye - well, I can't promise I'll remember there's ground below.

I'll heal these scraped knees & watch where my feet land because my mind will remind me of what it feels like to fall when you're all grown up - ouch; however, the next time I forget I've no wings - except those in my heart - the skin will be a little tougher, and I'll laugh at the exhilaration of flying - if only in that split second before like a thunderbolt I fall.