Gliders
Written sometime around May 17th, 2010 by Justin Brock. Category: Songs
In 1997, I returned to Scandinavia for the second time. For part of the trip, I stayed with David, a friend from college who lives in Siljansnäs, Sweden, south of Mora on Lake Siljan1.
We spent most of the time memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism, discussing ancient red buildings and walking in silence. It was a bright week in an otherwise dark trip.
David’s father is a pilot. When we visited the air field, his dad took me up in a prop plane to see if he could make me pass out from the spins and dives. He almost succeeded.
Back on Ground, David told me about the gliders. How the thermal currents off the lake make Siljansnäs a perfect place for flying them, how the prop planes pull them up to the sky and how they drop their water ballasts when they dip in silently to land, leaving trails of rainbows in the mist behind them. His idiomatic English made the description more poetic to me.
I never got to see them, but the images have stayed with me. I hope to see them one day.
The song that resulted has been in my head for years. Recently, I decided to learn how to play the arrangement so I could perform it at my “How to Make Fun of Sufjan Stevens” talk at Belhaven. Here’s the video of me playing it very badly.
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Gliders
Lake Siljan in summer shines like a Silmaril,
the far shore wavers through heat visible.
It’s perfect for bathing, it’s perfect for love,
And oh it’s perfect for gliding.An umbilical cord on an old prop plane
will bear you up into heaven
and birth you on winds of invisible waves
where white sails unfurl in the sun.And I hope to see the gliders!
Rising on thermals in effortless flight,
wings white as egrets stretching their span,
rainbows that fall in the mist as they land,
slow, silent dreams passing by -
I hope to see the gliders!Like gulls in the throes of a sea-salty wind,
like vultures in weaving their intricate rounds,
like conifer seeds that spin from the heat to the ground …I hope to see the gliders!
Rising on thermals in effortless flight,
wings white as egrets stretching their span,
rainbows that fall in the mist as they land,
slow, silent dreams passing by -
I hope to see the gliders!Soon the breaking of dawn will run like a peach2
and long-grounded wings will wake to the east -
bright angels will raise up cruciform souls to the sun!And I hope to see the gliders!
Rising on thermals in effortless flight,
wings white as egrets stretching their span,
rainbows that fall in the mist as they land,
slow, silent dreams passing by -
I hope to see the gliders!Written on 5/26/05
- Siljansnäs, Sweden [↩]
- Take a few bites out of a ripe peach, then set it on a white paper towel. The juice will seep into the paper, dying it a pale orange. At one point, probably in childhood, I saw this and thought the peach was the sun and the paper the brightening sky. At any rate, this is a horticultural image for the fullness of time. [↩]