Air Lines
Joseph Zitt (1992?)
Here we juggle satchels randomly. Here we at least appear to enter evenly And, as we find our places, shift our packages From overhead to by our weary feet. Pretend, for now, That these people are your friends, Or, if not your friends, The people who might play your friends In television movies of your life. Here we now extinguish all smoking materials. Here we strap ourselves Within the howling tube of flight. Here we observe the Ritual Dance As the uniformed ones who would serve us dinner And preserve our lives Show us the uses of the implements That might fall into our future Should the pressure of air not be What it is presumed to be Or should our interrupted soaring Deposit us upon the waters On which our easily unfastened seat Would let us float. Here we achieve our union with the air. Do not fear, though our seats rise up against us. The ground retracting, We let the skywinds work their will. II I wanted to write you poems In a forgotten language But no lost tongues moderate the air Between Houston and Newark En route from Austin to New York Save the long diffused smoke rings Deployed by disenfranchised natives centuries ago Waiting all this time To ensnare the invaders' craft And bring to them the messages of other, Now industrial planes. Sample, now, this turbulence; Play it back, when you get home, at sixty times its captured speed and hear The nightcry of a dancer Possessed by and possessing souls of eagles Who look up above their circles, above the clouds And see the gleaming lighted Bellies of the skywhales That soar so much faster Than their feathers would believe. III Let me get this straight. We're in a can much heavier than air. (Yeah) And we're moving real real fast (Uh-huh) And the wings are shaped in mystic secret forms That cause the air to shoot above and miss them So the air below is pushing real hard And keeps these heavy toys and people Miles above the ground (You got it) And all these bumps and potholes that we feel Are real real big but can't be seen And everyone is used to it And it's safer here than riding on the ground. (Uh-huh) Uh-huh. I'll rather bet on fairy's wings than on -- What's the word? -- aerodynamics. It makes more sense to me Than heavy air pushing a metal box Real fast above the Earth. OK (OK) Uh-huh (Now let me watch the movie, huh?) IV Against the slimness of her waist I prayed to rest my head. She, the crispness of whose clothes Spoke of calm and continuity, Could not hear my wish, but still, As her passing gentleness Unbrushed my dreamswept hair, Granted all my whispers. I returned, renewed, To cabin night And air-enlivened sleep. V Rock me gently now, Mother of Flight, As we slowly drop through clouds, Through sifting air. We surrender here to the pull of earth And feel not heavier, but lighter. The plastic arms, the fine webbed belts That bind us to our cradling seats Vibrate with the mantras Of the priests of our technologies: Relax: Millions fly like you, And, like you, they well fly again. Relax: The rushing that we hear Is not the torturing of winds But greetings. Relax: The Mother of Flight blesses us And decants us gently on forgiving ground. Remember the solaces of flight. Remember: Gravity Is Your Friend.
