I
At 12,000 feet, lights below
dot the blackness as if by rule,
fill our ever-arranging eyes
with sparkling motifs, a parole of order
vast, doping, and certain.
But suppose those gold temple bells
chime only in the mind.
Suppose that sheen is not geometry,
but mere angling, a peasant code
for the manorless void.
Then the apparent samba of geranium buds
banking to the light
would be an accident of faith
at a winter window.
Then ice honeycombed by chickenwire,
at daybreak, would be certain knowledge.
Then finding hieroglyphics
of sparrow tracks in the snow
would be cause to send telegrams
and unfurl all our flags.
Then the banana republic of the heart
would be everything.
II
In the measured world below
lie unmapped constellations:
a winged camel, a milkman, a bee-clustered hive.
any more than the lit veils
on the skyline, or the gold membranes
as city lights float under us
the tracery of a fluorescent sea creature
on a moonless reef,
its backbone a tilted highway
glittering to the horizon,
neon hubs its organs and, in between,
the webbed tinsel of suburbia.
III
Red lights in the cockpit.
A pilot cradles the wheel’s two uplifted arms,
as unerring numbers
count backward to zero.
Their message is not new.
Drifting mindful somewhere
between the cities and the moon,
he watches numbers flicker,
as if to unravel them
and name their starry sum,
as if he could speak
the patois of sheer light.