‘She’s away and westward bound
Far above the clouds she’ll fly
Where the mornin’ rain don’t fall
And the sun always shines..’
– Gordon Lightfoot, Early Morning Rain

Poems, songs about planes usually
come in varietal shades of gone
poets and lyricists see escape
oh, oh big ol’ jet airliner
don’t carry me too far away…

Even the tortured soul
leavin’ on a jet plane who said
they would be coming back…

I fly to get away only
from solid ground
to the clouds, and above
at thirty-thousand feet
coming or going is never my
thought process
getting up there, staying up
watching clouds beats
a Hollywood blockbuster

Funny thing is, I have never
had the typical flying
dreams or
fantasies about zooming
from here-to-there
never wanted to be a pilot
nor astronaut
but getting on a plane to
take me somewhere
always does
to the same place
no matter where or when
I am flying
I get to go to that place
where I am above
the clouds

A friend of mine likes
to cloud gaze
ground up, gazing from
wide open plains
interpreting what clouds
look like
uncanny in her accuracy
smooth eye for detail
I find her pictures of clouds
interesting, but…

As for me, they don’t need
to get all gussied up
putting on airs
when it comes to clouds
I’ll take mine in their
natural state
when I join them as
free-range condensation
dew of the imagination

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2020
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