Lufthansa Pilot
On the forty-ninth floor of the Ritz
as near to heaven as an escalator can raise him,
the Lufthansa pilot is anchor-dragging skyward.
In the vacant hours, the street lights are runway guides.
He closes his eyes, gains height,
the rising sun appears for a moment to sink,
the city, a chrome lustre in the rose dawn.
When countries are circumscribed
within the contours of a stretch of coast,
a diminished range, desert, he is released,
at home with absence, intimate with cumulus, cirrus.
Safer than instinct, instruments are the measure
of balance. Engine sound enters the unconscious ears
of those far below. Give me height.
In the stratosphere, free from storm turbulence,
cloud, he breathes. Ice splinters pack along glass.
The sun shines hard through indigo.
Winds are horizontal. There is no friction.
To swoop down, re-enter where the miniature looms
large as skyscrapers, is to step backwards
each time, to enter the unstructured humdrum
of the atom. Give him beauty, order and the balm
of those who are also located in arrival, departure,
flux, for whom I will be gone soon are the words
most easy to find. Those ahead of their selves,
whose souls, travelling overland on foot
and many times overtaken, have given up the search,
taking a spiral route of their own choosing.
