Riding the Wild Wind
By
Gregory Troxell
—After
Frederic Remington’s A Buck-Jumper (1893)
Reaching
high with one hand,
He
grabs a fistful of wind
And
it bolts him into the air,
Face
to the sky,
He
scrapes the white belly of an indifferent cloud,
And
strains to bring his other hand ‘round,
To
tighten his hold, and buck up his hope.
He
spins, and there’s the ground! Then gone in a blink!
Now
the hurricane swells, and with twice the strength,
Spins
him flat so the sun spikes his eyes.
He’s
riding the wild wind, now and forever,
As
the sky and the earth reverse,
Then
right themselves, then back, and over again, then over . . .
Panic
and joy joust for control of his soul
As
the ground and the sounds fade away,
And
shooting toward heaven he feels nothing, hears . . . nothing.
And
then, as suddenly as it all began,
It
ends, as the rock hard earth finds its mark,
Slamming
his back and stealing his breath.
Pulling
himself up, he studies the stallion,
Prancing
victoriously to be free of him.
Slowly
he threads through the fence, smiling to hide the pain,
But
his heart is already rising on the wind.
To
view an image of A Buck-Jumper, click on
From
Gregory Troxell:
“I am a veteran and retired corporate attorney living in the
Indianapolis area. I enjoy writing poetry and short stories and I am
currently working on a novel about a civil war veteran struggling
with PTSD. I have been published only in professional journals
including The Electricity Journal, and the Indiana Law Review.”