I don't know what it is, but there
seem to be a lot of airline poems going around these days,
and I'm no exception.
I got three.
Point of Origin, these are two of them.
I'll finish with the last later.
Point of Origin.
And I hope there's progress.
I don't know what is that, some historical determinism?
We shouldn't think of progress.
Somebody said is it progress if the cannibal uses a knife
and fork?
Point of Origin.
They feed me and feed me and feed me
till the last passions of the airport parting
are as far away as Earth.
The cruelties, the furies of recrimination, love will pass.
In a minute, it's an hour ago.
Varieties of cloud go by.
Varieties of blue, there's always some somewhere, a clear
to swear by, and I do.
Because we argued to the very ramp,
because I was the last to board, because a man of many years--
nobody knew his language-- occupied my given seat,
I get to go first class.
A present, and a presence multiplied
till soon, I am mistaking luck for privilege.
I taste a couple of lunches, have my little weep in private,
take a glass of wine to make abstractions of,
in geometric light.
But all the while, behind me there,
where calm cannot be bought and where I was supposed to stay,
somebody's baby cries and cries and cries,
impossible to pacify.