the falling

.

You turn towards meteor showers in August,

wishing yourself like that:

bright and burning wholly out.

When feeling finally comes it is

that falling, matter breaking away

from air, the sound

of crickets moving through the grass like fire—

and the strangely twisted metal

in the field that a child finds:

residue, crown.

Then there’s the story of the Chinese sage,

in anger and despair, who cut his body away in pieces,

flung them into the lake.

Each one, becoming finned and whole, swims off.

~ Jane Hirshfield