On The Airplane

I've read The Windhover, so I know it can be done,
but watching the sun set at thirty thousand feet,
a postcard end of a pleasant day, I wonder:
what longing in me drives this urge to capture,
To preserve, this one particular moment of God's beauty?
For beyond doubt there will be other such moments,
More profound, and some I'll notice, but not all.

I've had my chances, some taken, more squandered,
to experience the beauty that is found
in the small spaces between people:
So where is the urge to pursue, or capture, or preserve that?

Perhaps I am a coward;
The sunset, so big and public,
provides all, demands little,
while intimacy demands so much,
and it may be that it takes the same courage,
and small hands, to capture a sunset
as to preserve a falcon in flight, or an embrace.

Between Chicago and Austin, 2006