A train yard's beaded chevron unravels, almost imperceptibly. An abandoned unbuilt neighborhood passes below. Bold weeds and unapologetic brush build the picket fence that encircles ghosts of dogs and two point five kids on streets with squandered names. Long forgotten are the artists' cheery renderings in glossy brochures. Further on, a kidney carved by an age-wrinkled river. Filaments of sea froth unwind across a lake, echoed a hundred feet above by a sparkling white thread of birds in low sun.
The countdown from one-hundred-ten reflexively begins as the gear drops - a test of a flight attendant's tension-easing small talk several trips ago. A fling of a mooring rope to land about the time that faith in fluid dynamics wanes. (One-hundred-twelve to a crooked touchdown - owing, perhaps, to an errant forty-six and inconsistent pacing. The human measurement of the mechanical.)
Ascent again. A loosely-collected town, no planning commission to sweep together the fragments and splinters. Color leaches from earth as a brilliant ribbon of atmosphere - trapping the terrestrial from the celestial - intensifies. Details obscure until glitter sharpens against velvet. Light cast and light swallowed and light cast again. A tangerine moon rises as if from within the earth. Drawn by its gravity, we yield to its pull home.
Originally written 1 January 2010
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