Penny for a Poem

Bittersweet Gravity

I wish to fall and hit the ground, a grounded return to terra firm.
Yet each time I start that descent, panic insists my wings still work.
Pulled by earth's inexorable tug, I crave the solace of solid and sure.
To shed these ephemeral airs behind, and anchor at last in pastures secure.
But then perception's windswell stirs, catching me mid-plummet unprepared.
My feathers rustle, catch uplift's draft leaving earth's embrace that I neared.
Soaring skyward, heights unplanned, a prisoner to these paradox plumes.
While part of me yearns for ground's absolve, another savors altitude's room.
This dual longing breeds dizzying spins, a gyre of conflicting wants, terrors in tow.
To fall awash in gravity's current, or brave zephyrs' lifts, lighter than low?
Each apex achieved swiftly grows stale, restless for grounded or loftier planes.
Forever torn between ceiling and sod, unable to savor what either ordains.
Perhaps I'm fated to live 'twixt the two, eternal outsider to both realms' rest.
Never truly falling, nor fully in flight this purgatory of hovering unblessed.
Or maybe the answer lies not in the choice, but in releasing the wish for a side.
To move fluidly 'twixt terren and air, and find peace in the rise, the fall, the glide.