Idlewild
Back then it was enough
to stand outside the fence
with dad and watch
the lumbering steel birds taxi
down the runway,
then bank into the blue and vanish.
We were seeing no one off,
yet felt the ache of departure, even then,
and the mystery of it,
how something can leave so completely,
leaping into air, defying gravity
to land upon a shore a world away.
*
Richard Schiffman is an environmental reporter, poet and author of two biographies based in New York City. His poems have appeared on the BBC and on NPR as well as in the Alaska Quarterly, the New Ohio Review, the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times, Writer’s Almanac, This American Life in Poetry, Verse Daily and other publications. His first poetry collection “What the Dust Doesn’t Know” was published in 2017 by Salmon Poetry.
This spoke directly to me. Whenever my folks drove anyone to the airport, my grandmother, family friend, etc., I would weep in the back seat. I haven’t thought about that in years.
The immensity of grief and wonder. Beautiful.
Nice!
Amazing how planes back in the day captured the imagination. Whenever a jet flew over our backyard in Queens, I would yell up a big hello to my aunt, uncle, and two cousins who would visit us every June.