Trajectory - June 9 2026

 

Trajectory 

June 9 2026

We are projectiles,

following an arc

far more erratic 

than gravity’s steady pull.

Yes, there is a launch date

and a rise and fall,

but no constant force or smooth trajectory.

No set of tables to call upon

as any gunnery sergeant could,

no spotter

concealed down-range

directing the cannon shot. 

Wind plays a part,

blowing erratically 

and nudging us off course.

Sometimes, with hurricane force

everything’s transformed.

While a sudden updraft

can keep us aloft,

a tornado

which no one saw coming

might whisk us away,

deposited in Oz

with the other lost souls.

Interceptors can take us down,

bad weather throw us off,

heat-seeking sensors

lead us astray.

But it’s the descent that’s most confounding.

To know how quickly we’ll fall

and when to let go

of our youthful ambition,

the pettiness

and minor obsessions

that preoccupied our middle age.

Yet really, wouldn’t we rather have hope

than know our certain end?

Because even false hope

can be a consolation.

  . . . Or is there no such thing;

that hope is never false?

Our fate, of course, is to fall to earth

no matter how off-course we coasted

how easy our trajectory. 

No one reaches orbit;

escape velocity

is only for the gods.

We are also unarmed.  

We end quietly

no matter how much we rage

deny

spit fire. 

The arc of our journey will end

who knows when,

coasting on inertia

before a sudden stop

when the rush of air is stilled;

unexploded ordinance

after a short eventful run,

with our nose

buried in the earth.

If only we were ballistic,

followed a predictable arc

along a neatly traced parabola.

But the descent is erratic

  — it can happen unexpectedly fast

or drag on unbearably long.

Because while Man plans

God decides.

And after all

your wish to fly was granted,

what more can you ask?

This fascinating AP photo is of the remnants of an unexploded missile from Hezbollah that landed in Israel. What’s striking is its resemblance to the gee whiz depiction of a futuristic rocket in some 1940’s science fiction comic, not the sleek silvery cruise missile that I would have imagined. It immediately struck me as laughable; not only the appearance, but the impotence. 

I’m of an age when I don’t feel I’ve yet lost anything physically, even though the chronological number suggests otherwise. I see my peers dying off. I see my time line shortening. Yet who knows how short or long: could be 1 year, could be 30! So every day feels a bit like a lottery. My appreciation of the diurnal sharpens, while my sense of future planning becomes somewhat murky: is any kind of long term planning worth it;  are all my worries pointless; why can’t I let go of all my neurotic preoccupations? I suppose one might say “when will I finally grant myself the freedom to be simply present?”

Yes, there is an arc to a life.  But it’s hardly the smooth parabola of a ballistic arc. And it seems as if the descending limb of the arc is the most vexing.