17 March 2010 * Air Canada

St. Patrick's Day

Smooth expanse ­­— blue into grey
     rimmed with pink
     & the tangerine sun resting
     on beds of coral cloud.

We sail on maple wings
     float above the ice king, Mt. Rainier
     staunch above dusk.

Before this lift, we rode wheel and keel,
     saw a man collapse, as dead, at Bridgeport
     checked, passed, scanned, queued
     met an eagle man who asked:
          "Why do you live in Canada?"

(How could he not know?
The green island, the garden city, the cherry blossoms, the wild deep sea,
the books and letters, the daffodils
     nodding on a December's summer morning,
the lingua franca, the easy space for turbans, toques, (even burkas!),
the leaves, the ice, the team, the gold medal goal!
     Doesn't he know?)

Our destination? The Rich Coast, land of Pure Life.
     We travel to escape normalcy.
     We travel to shift. And to smell the deep
     green lush castle of dense life. To touch
     Earth's pulse, drink her clear blood,
     re-call her heart beat.

An extravagance! Earth's hand is always open.
     We needn't fly 10,000 leagues to find it.
     No. Our journey is superfluous
          and an indulgence.
     Where is the benefit?

We must make meaning from this travel.
  We must unblind our eyes,
    live pure for the sake of
      all that live and die and suffer grey lives of
        concrete and contamination.
          The human tsunami of cannibal locust.
            The pestilence we've wrought upon our Earth.