22 October 2025 (short flight)

short flight to Boston

the beckoning frontier

of clouds

21 April 2024 (hovering over)

hovering over

the airport’s one runway

first kestrel

6 March 2023 (same sky)

into the same sky

as the full moon

our plane home

11 August 2021 (dream)

a dream of flying

I had it in me

all along

September 25: Sunset celebration

cannon fired at sunset

scares up all the harbor gulls

their wings glowing

 

Posted with Blogsy

March 14: Lo, on high, yon Bald Eagle!

The crows are pissed
but my spirits soar in blue skies
with that eagle.

Do you see the eagle waaaay up in the sky?

February 26: Boston

If I were a pigeon

I too would swoop

between these tall buildings.

Posted with Blogsy

January 11: Flight to Florida

After Bangor was enshrouded by ice yesterday morning and our flight was delayed five hours, we felt very fortunate to be on the only plane leaving the airport that afternoon. Our gratitude was bolstered by the fact that on the drive to the airport we passed many cars off the road--even after conditions had improved--and when we got there, we were surrounded by hundreds of troops--men and women who had been deployed for months overseas and who were now going to have to wait one more long day to continue their flights home to family.

 

I felt relief tinged with a little guilt when we finally arrived in the warm embrace of Florida late last night for our vacation.

 

Outside the airport

Killdeer cries in the rainy dark

beyond the palms.

 

And then this unexpected stopover on the drive to my mother's house:

 

Part of this happy crowd--

cheering on the Patriots

in a smoky Hooters bar.

Posted with Blogsy

October 22: Deeper into fall

Waiting for a phone call.

A single crow flies straight

and high overhead.

January 15: Perspective

I love to pore over topo maps, trying to visualize the three-dimensional reality on the ground of the two-dimensional symbols on a piece of paper. I thought of the experience of map-reading this morning as we flew into Atlanta. With clear sunny skies, I could see every building and topographical feature below, with the skyscrapers of the city center looming on the horizon. I entertained myself in trying to decipher what I was looking down on. A gravel pit was an easy one, but what was that bare hill, almost a butte, that looked like it had been scraped off for some reason? For that matter, what was the black mound sided with what looked like solar panels? It being Sunday and the South, the large building surrounded by cars and what might be construed as a steeple had to be a church. The big flat institutional building with fields and an oval track out back was clearly a school. Sewage treatment plants are fairly easy to pick out. The intricate streets of all the housing developments, lined with big look-a-like houses, fascinated me. Some had pools and tennis courts, some didn't. If I had to live in that one there, I decided, I'd be in that house at the end of that cul de sac surrounded by woods. Not near the pool, but quieter, less crammed in. Some developments were separated from obvious construction sites/gravel pits by just a fringe of trees. I wondered if you noticed the proximity if you lived there. Just before the airport, we flew low over several industrial buildings with rows of semi trailers backed up to loading docks, then a post office with a lot full of identical mail trucks. Then a patch of raw red earth--future runway space?--and then we touched down.

From air, perspective:
all those lives below, people
filling the landscape.

December 19: Flying Geese

Driving through town with the car stereo playing loudly, I looked up to see a flying flock of geese in silhouette against the cloudy sky overhead. I was reminded of the weaving pattern my grandmother liked so much called Flying Geese. The repeated Vs of the pattern was a common theme in the borders of her wall hangings, as a reference to her pet goose Max. A barnyard goose of the domestic variety, Max was probably too fat to ever fly. But the pattern was there, a touchstone for the potential for wild beauty. Like what I saw from my car this afternoon--the very shapes of wild geese flying enough to stir my heart and memory.

Silhouettes of geese
black against winter white sky.
Yet still I drive north.