Last week, I was six miles up,
sitting in a cold blue, above a mess
of March clouds, strewn like ruffled rugs—
whites, grays, shreds—and under those,

a drizzle, I suppose, and everyone down there
agreeing they needed rain, people glad
about the pitter, or diner chatter, or Sunday nap,

and the rich plains soaking. I actually began
to like flying, feeling alone and removed.
Then my glance caught the wing quivering—

an absolutely normal thing, I knew,
that silver tremble of negotiation,
a dialogue with air—but a lot more air
than slice of wing to ride it. I tried

to wink it away, to be a child, dressing
in puffy layers for some special, unfamiliar cold—            
because I'd seen some simple physics happen.

Now I link that shivering wing
to a pine tree's punch-drunk bend and wobble,
its March sparrows squeezing harder,
little talons in spitting snow. In such conceits

I'm quite a linker of things as I grow
a few more metaphors removed
from ice or the rocks ice splits.

I build the bit of distance words can make
against what's raw. Remove,
and then remove again. Never trust
a March that's blue—sparrows don't.

I wrap the quilted layers thick around me
and feel my coiled toes hanging on.
I peep to strangers in the rain, as they
fall away and spin, farther off and small.

__

Drafts of this poem lay around for years, probably over a decade, before I finally wrestled this version into being in 2019. Like the speaker, I hate flying, probably more than he does, not just out of fear but also from claustrophobia and being treated as baggage and missing the folks and sights along our two-lane roads. So in my dozen or so lifetime flights, the poem's images and associations are the kinds of things that come to mind.