Neither One Thing Nor the Other

Sometimes I think perhaps I’m just obtuse.
Noon yesterday I took a turn through King’s.
The crippled physicist came whirring by,
No doubt preoccupied with cosmic things.
I stepped aside. Above us in the sky
A burping biplane shook a glider loose
Whose pilot, swerving sunward, must have felt
As overwhelmingly at liberty
As this man felt pinned down. Was that right, though?
To lie still yet see all might feel more free
Than not to know quite why you’re free to go.
The chair hummed off. The glider made no sound.
If I can’t fly, why am I not profound?