May 3, 2011

descent

The seatbelt signs come on long before they have to,
but I suppose this is the way of modern flying. Safety
first. I’m at the window, watching for San Francisco
but we’ve begun the initial descent in far-off Carmel. Maybe
it’s the air traffic this time of day. I hear the thrust and hum
of brakes coming on, feel the plane barely dip its
wings and I’m wondering if this is always the momentum,
if the drama of our lives is, in fact, as slow as minutes,
more deliberate than we pretend, not the disorder we insist on wrestling.
but a path, just like that, with the sky as guide, and the wind, our blessing.