Temporary Flight

Deep blue haze
           Elektra wings thru
     Illimitable
White bird in it
            far off
             skimming
      or a white plane skating
              way down there
    small shadow of it
            sweeping
            the shrunk landscape
      disappeared now
            into the great brown ground
          as if fallen
                   while its plane still flies on
             miraculously!
And Sunday Chicago appears
                     at end of autumn carpet
      stuck to great flat blue cloud
                of Lake Michigan
                    stretched out
      Rich resorts & Lakeshore fronts
       beaches lapped forever
           pavillions asleep in time
Hum of Elektra winging down
       wigging down
   Seatbelts on
          flaps down
               swinging around
           for re-entry
                into that world
    Engine drones
              like a tamboura
Passage to India
             on LSD Airlines
     Temporary flight
              of ecstatic insanity
        into its own
             glittering terminals
                pulsing with light
Gliding down & down
How calm all
Still autumn forest
            Golf-link in it
Straightwayhighway into cloverleaf
              cars crawling the petals
Huge cemetery in brown woods 
           Death itself only another
                lower form
            of temporary ecstatic insanity
     out of your skull
             into the ground
How soft the trees down there 
           How very soft
             from up here
      We
           could almost
        bounce into them
      soft landing
            among the branches
And so on down
             into it
      into the soft ground
            illusion!
  As if
   as if we don't ever die
    but become new burrowing consciousness
        Earthworm Tractors
ZOOM
   Still a scary landing
         into that Underground

            Ferlinghetti
            Cincinnati-Chicago
            Sunday Oct 23, 1966
         
Copyright © 1995 Lawrence Ferlinghetti