Gravity

“Seek first to understand,” Stephen Covey wrote in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It sounds so easy but can be so difficult!

​A good air day is a breeze 
of 10-12 knots off the beam but
it is also when the breath of angels 
 
provides insight into the incomprehensible–
like when our light-air sail 
beneath the Mighty Mac 
 
was disrupted by a red-faced officer
in a homeland security boat 
who pulled within shouting distance
 
and accused us of knowing nothing 
about gravity. Gravity? 
Calling what we’d done 
 
the stupidest thing he’d ever seen,
he was still hollering and shaking his fist 
when he finally motored away. 
 
Initially, I thought his concern
was for our safety, worried items might fall
through the metal grating of the bridge
 
as we slowed to photograph the underside 
of the engineering masterpiece 
connecting the peninsulas of Michigan. 
 
Only later, did I realize perhaps gravity 
had nothing to do with Newton’s law, 
but with his heightened concern 
 
for the security of bridges 
since the collapse of the Francis Scot Key.
Perhaps our boat’s change of speed 
 
created an urgency 
in an otherwise lazy summer day
as he had to consider we might be terrorists 
 
rather than two aging sailors
photographing everything 
so as not to forget.