Can Humans Fly
Like a warrior she stands
on the edge of the white mountain
ready to take to the air, the clear blue winter sky
calls her to take to take flight, and she heeds the call.
Effortlessly her body rolls its first step, the speed of the wind
hits her without mercy, though she knows how to use it to her advantage.
Lifting her wings she glides over the first roll of the mountain peek below
twisting and turning, creating geometric shapes that only the few could experience, know or feel.
The blast of the first full 360 degree turn in the air gives her confidence
to try pushing the boundaries further with the next acrobatic manoeuvre.
The aerial rotations take on an ever more complex visual overload, flipping frontside and back switching directions which move so fast in the air they create a blur to the human eye.
The tones of the white snow below and the piercing blue sky above give the sky rider the canvass to perform this passionate airborne ballet, which defies time and space.
The movement of the dance increases its pace to perform ever more daring dynamics, inverted rotations bend her body into positions that no ordinary physical body could perform.
The wind speed becomes more intense as the mountain now drops lower coming closer to the ground level where the grand finally awaited the lucky eyes who could glimpse the bird like gladiator at work.
Perfect mixture of power and beauty she enters her last spin at 180 degrees
switching back, her wings manoeuvre into a backward flipping, backside spin, rotating into a 540 degree twist, followed by another backflip rotation.
The degree of complexity twists and turns her body like a rodeo rider holding onto nothing but air, and a belief that humans can fly.
written by
Darragh J Brady
after watching the snowboarding world cup in Russia 2014
I am blow away by those athletes.
