–for Stephen Sandy
Into the last smoke blue of this day's light
the de Havilland lifts, trailing from each wing
the lights of the Capitol.
Except for the heat blur off each engine's cowl
the view is clear, out to the nebula of Lancaster,
so clear the wingtip strobes have nothing to print on.
The plane gains altitude like an extended praise.
In the cockpit richly blue gauges
keep track of our relationships to earth.
Having succeeded in leaving the earth
not nearly so well as the plane, this poem
discovers it is not about a plane but you.
John Barr / from The Hundred Fathom Curve
