Airplane

I remember the first time

The feeling dawned; I didn't know its name

I was flying in the small plane

Over a midnight blue night landscape,

And I could not see the horizon.

Sitting in the passenger seat,

Belted in, the instruments on

The cockpit panels glowed red

As we droned on, the backward dance

Of language from a small-town tower

Disappearing into the letters, numbers,

Monotone:

Whiskey Bravo One Niner Niner,

Indistinct

I could not tell if those stars were

In the constellation

Or the lights of tiny

Towns or farmyards

Along the river, down below.

There simply was no line of earth and sky

No, none that I could see.

Not that it mattered much.

That suspension, I suppose, as I recall,

Flying toward a landing strip

That meant I would be home

Was my first brush with pure

Suspended peace.

And it was years on, the

Young girl grown,

I learned that homeostasis

Was one of life's true gifts,

That fleet oneness, later blossoming

Unbidden, as autumn

Reds, leaves golden in the

Floating flash

Reflected in the car's half-opened

Windows and across a rain-splashed

Windshield,

In the drowsy motion

There, glittered by the diamond

Drops, sudden sun blooming into memory,

Flying in the moment, then, I

Understood the balance.

Another Kind of Winter Count

Down along the windbreak across the road,

Where little hedge apples fell

Onto the back of

Not a rack, but just some old

Cart there

We’d watch the green day turn to

Rose as the sun set, often orange in those

Long ago summers. 
And even when

The nighttime came on,

We could see by the

Dark lit sky,

And home was where

The grand willow

Was the only architecture

In that large back yard,

Before our mother’s lilac hedge kept out the pasture.

In an early dark

I think how I don’t want

To forget a lot of things,

So many memories, so many stories.

I am taking my winter count.