AIRPORT SUNRISE

When I was a kid, and you could do so, I loved

to wander through the vast, complex city of the airport,

past its chintzy gift shops and stuffy bars,

wafts of blue-tinged smoke and stale beer drifting

out into the clamor of air-conditioned lobbies,

where everything was in motion, the lives

of strangers and their families suddenly so close,

everyone embracing, everyone either waving

goodbye or hello for the first time in years.

Someone was always crying, sometimes a whole

congregation, shuddering as if from the cold.

Someone, you suspected, might never be seen again.

I would have been there with one of my sisters,

visiting from, or returning to, their separate family

in California, a mysterious land of earthquakes,

sun, and ocean, where the only snow they ever saw

came from postcards or their TV screens.

I loved the enormous glass walls at the terminals,

how they scaled upward seemingly without end, drifting

into shadow, the mighty and monstrous planes

gleaming on the tarmac, tiny men waving

each of them this way and that, flares in hand,

signaling in a language no one else could fathom.

I loved to see the sun hovering on the horizon,

throwing out a few tentative ropes of light,

then pulling itself up in earnest, blanketing this

flat and slightly tilted corner of the world; and I, too,

would be waving a solemn goodbye as my sister,

along with the other passengers, slump-shouldered,

moved forward down that accordion-like tunnel,

something small closing behind each of them,

like the shadow of a page being turned, sparks of blue

and yellow from a doorway I could not see.

VISITING AMELIA EARHART'S HOUSE WITH MY DAUGHTER

 

We slow to a stop on Fairmount Avenue, the gentle swaying of summer Ash and Elm rising above us on either side, casting an imperfect net of shadows around our sneakered feet. The tall Victorian house has been well cared for, newly painted, as though lifted from another century and gently placed on this small slope of earth. People still live here, so we are mindful not to step upon the freshly-clipped lawn, or to gawk too long into the small curved windows above; though it's easy to imagine the face of that young girl looking out, dreamy and despondent in this foreign place, a harsh Minnesota winter swirling outside the glass. Was her adolescent mind already in flight, mapping a course amongst the heavens which no one else could see? My daughter and I wonder why some details seem clearer when farther away, ponder whether the sky is the greatest of all distances, or in fact its opposite. We have no schedule to keep, and nowhere in particular to be on this day, which makes such questions come more easily, if not their answers. The earth is tilting, though we cannot tell from where we stand; the afternoon sun is both warm and receding.