we take off
goodbye LA and farewell
wheels up, goodbye to kite-flying, picture-taking
toes in pacific, sand in my pocket
goodbye is the new hello
cars parked in rows below
glitter as we all say goodbye
individually
to this sunshine, the sailboats
finely patterned sea
rimmed with waves only at shore
the huge icy pool floating down
from Alaska
I wonder why the plane points
further out to sea (Hawaii)
but then there's new land
below us yet
houses and roads and buildings and cul-de-sacs
packed tight and neat as a
box of candy
nothing moves from up here
I'm always by the wing
in the window seat
with no clouds it makes sense
haze reaches out from the sea, stretches out,
and covers the city
the sun beats down hard on snowcapped mountains
some range with no name to think of,
juts up from the fading
order of this city's edges
blue on our side,
gold when shot w/ the sun, standing straight up
to face it
37 thousand feet
a million captive paintings
and my camera buried overhead
ranges in the distance like
that venetian day
snow-filled trenches, soon all I'll see is
the light vanishing on the faces of lakes
microscopic grids of civilization and tracks
of water winding huge around them
avalanches waiting to happen,
coming to bend the trees
maybe not this year but next
great circles made in land like
orozco's drawings, pennies in your car's
console, lined edge-to-edge
I left the Polaroid in the frame of your art on the wall
for whomever to notice, whenever
I'll send a teakettle for early Christmas
cheers to disappointment with fathers
days spent regretting no mistakes