Sara Hill
The Wind Rises
As my bike teeters downhill and slowly gains
momentum. I lift my hands off the handlebars
and take flight. The wind envelopes me, beats against
my eardrums, drives me home, while my cold stained
face breaks into laughter.
I was walking next to my father once, before I stuck
my arms out wide. When he asked, I said I'm an airplane!
don’t you just get the urge to be an airplane sometimes?
He looked at me, college age and still doing this, and said no,
but I get the urge to be weird sometimes, so I think I understand.
My father collects antique motorcycles, spends all his spare time
restoring them. He told me once, A real engineer, does engineering
as a hobby, not just as a degree. Hayao Miyazaki's father was a
manufacturer for airplanes for WWII. Many of Miyazaki's movies
deal with the fascination of flight.
When I spin my colorguard flag, I hear it beat
against the wind. It took me years to stand up to my father,
only to have my brother stand up against me. My father is taller
than my flagpole, but if you throw it with enough force
it can cut through any wind.
In graduate school, the students would say airplanes fly
with the laws of aerodynamics, while helicopters beat the wind
into submission. The difference between flying and gliding
is who is manipulating who. I don’t know if I am an engineer
because I want to be or because that’s what my parents are.
I was seven the first time I got the wind knocked out of me,
I had tripped on a tree root and landed on my chest. I was five
when my father threw me against a wall and landed in my brother's
Legos. Nowadays I lose my breath climbing up a couple flights of stairs,
but never when going downhill on my bike.
The movie, The Wind Rises, directed by Miyazaki, follows Jiro Horikoshi
and his obsession with aircraft. Miyazaki is a pacifist. Horikoshi designs
the A5M fighter aircraft. He says, "All I wanted to do was make something
beautiful" Caproni tells him "Airplanes are beautiful, cursed dreams, waiting
for the sky to swallow them up."
I know I can get angry like my father. I know this is a learned trait.
I still have nightmares about my father. I still want to work on
airplanes for a living. I don't want anything I work on to become
a weapon. Once you start going downhill it's hard to stop.
My father repeats to me "you have to keep pushing"
The movie, repeats "The wind is rising, We must try to live,"
but there are so many ways to live. I roll down my
windows on the freeway and feel the wind against
my face. This is how I remember touch doesn’t always
have to hurt.
The hill is ending, and my bike is slowing down, I have to
start pushing with my legs again. The difference between
a headwind and a tailwind is whether it's helping or
hurting. The difference between helping and hurting
is where you are trying to go.
As my bike teeters downhill and slowly gains
momentum. I lift my hands off the handlebars
and take flight. The wind envelopes me, beats against
my eardrums, drives me home, while my cold stained
face breaks into laughter.
I was walking next to my father once, before I stuck
my arms out wide. When he asked, I said I'm an airplane!
don’t you just get the urge to be an airplane sometimes?
He looked at me, college age and still doing this, and said no,
but I get the urge to be weird sometimes, so I think I understand.
My father collects antique motorcycles, spends all his spare time
restoring them. He told me once, A real engineer, does engineering
as a hobby, not just as a degree. Hayao Miyazaki's father was a
manufacturer for airplanes for WWII. Many of Miyazaki's movies
deal with the fascination of flight.
When I spin my colorguard flag, I hear it beat
against the wind. It took me years to stand up to my father,
only to have my brother stand up against me. My father is taller
than my flagpole, but if you throw it with enough force
it can cut through any wind.
In graduate school, the students would say airplanes fly
with the laws of aerodynamics, while helicopters beat the wind
into submission. The difference between flying and gliding
is who is manipulating who. I don’t know if I am an engineer
because I want to be or because that’s what my parents are.
I was seven the first time I got the wind knocked out of me,
I had tripped on a tree root and landed on my chest. I was five
when my father threw me against a wall and landed in my brother's
Legos. Nowadays I lose my breath climbing up a couple flights of stairs,
but never when going downhill on my bike.
The movie, The Wind Rises, directed by Miyazaki, follows Jiro Horikoshi
and his obsession with aircraft. Miyazaki is a pacifist. Horikoshi designs
the A5M fighter aircraft. He says, "All I wanted to do was make something
beautiful" Caproni tells him "Airplanes are beautiful, cursed dreams, waiting
for the sky to swallow them up."
I know I can get angry like my father. I know this is a learned trait.
I still have nightmares about my father. I still want to work on
airplanes for a living. I don't want anything I work on to become
a weapon. Once you start going downhill it's hard to stop.
My father repeats to me "you have to keep pushing"
The movie, repeats "The wind is rising, We must try to live,"
but there are so many ways to live. I roll down my
windows on the freeway and feel the wind against
my face. This is how I remember touch doesn’t always
have to hurt.
The hill is ending, and my bike is slowing down, I have to
start pushing with my legs again. The difference between
a headwind and a tailwind is whether it's helping or
hurting. The difference between helping and hurting
is where you are trying to go.
Sara Hill is a poet based in Boston, MA. Her writing explores science, sports, family trauma, and gender intersections. She competed with a team at the 2019 Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam and was a finalist for the 2020 Boston Poetry Slam team.