When she first began work on the big jet liners
Ocean-hopping flights made an enviable career.
Technology crafted knife-blades to cut through the sky
So a hundred-ton craft could ride on the wind.
And the stewardess’ fuselage is my own dream of flight
But my dream falls behind her takeoff velocity.
She is a believer in New Age philosophy
Trusting her fate to a great pair of hands,
Turbulence of air is unsteadiness of faith,
Should a downward plunge come, her soul will win free.
But I sit in this airplane, like a hurled stone
My broken heart is working like a radar screen
To search out where the world falls on calamity;
From outward to inward I sense the resonance,
And this is the extent of my spiritual experience.
She is well-poised, as if perched in flight
But I am always smelling aviation fuel;
The metal around her gleams brightly
As she is pushed ahead by roaring fire,
But as we penetrate the roiling atmosphere
I keep sensing embryonic typhoons.
As the wheel of time advances
Big jets are not on the cutting edge,
A jetliner trundles along like an airborne bus
And weary lines mark the stewardess’ face.
But that high-and-mighty gleam is still in her eyes
Because she still trusts in heavenly equations
To transport her on wings into heavenly blue spaces.
Leave a Reply