A Day for Flying

Ah, I remember it well.

I was doing a bit of flying myself ... around the house, that is ... trying to pick my way through the early morning fog that blurs my vision and sends my mind down a dozen detours.

I was trying to pull things together for watercolor class ... check for e-mails ... find my list of things I intended to do yesterday ... all this while watching the time ticking swiftly away.

And then, of course, there was a problem with the computer. What kind of problem? I really don't know. It just wasn't working right.

If it's not the kind of thing which has levers and wheels, cogs that are supposed to mesh ... things I can look at and tell what's broken or not working right, I'm in trouble ... big trouble.  

But isn't that always the way it is when you're in a hurry?

So, for a few minutes at least, I'm putting hurry aside now. I'm sitting here calmly at the keyboard, serenely typing a few words which I hope will make their way into "Chosen Words." 

Not a worry in the world.

Like, yeah, sure.

Meanwhile, here's the poem (I hope):

A DAY FOR FLYING

Crisp autumn breeze sliding off

some unseen glacier, sun busy

burnishing the copper leaves,

as though trees were incapable

of doing it themselves, and not

a cloud in sight. A day made

for flying. Indeed, overhead

dozens of silent chalk marks

of planes drag themselves along,

blade marks slowly multiplying

on a blue rink, crisscrossing,

widening, turning into fluffy

cotton batting stretched along

the cold, these diaphanous

contrails abandoned in a flight

to somewhere, as though planes

of the world were gathering

on this day to make clouds,

being impatient for the regular

kind and for the needed rain,

the prodigal, dallying rain.

© 1997

(originally published in Potpourri)

Today's word: diaphanous