I grew up near Floyd Bennet field
in Brooklyn, just military then
so I never got to stand in it.
All the airports I have known
from Idlewild a little older
to Bagdogra where the tigers roar
nothing prepared me for the sky
now that I am alone in it,
standing on earth, maybe,
but all I can see is that blue
gulping the earth up into
its glorious vacancy. A critic
would explain I mean
a clueless sky over Cedar Hill
and otherwise I’m just
showing off as usual, using
a thousand words where one
yawn or sob wold do the job.
Do the trick, he’d say, but it is
no trick, it is a long slow sigh,
the mind you hear in a cathedral
or imagine you would if you
dared to go to such places.
I just mean for half an hour
I’m alone with the sky —
the sky doesn’t seem to mind.

11 May 2023