Flying

Riding in an airplane, it's still this miraculous thing to me. You get in this steel airship and you're strapped in and suddenly you're lifted and soaring and next thing you're above the clouds. You look down as you take off and see your hometown turn into a little toy train set, the little cars going to and fro on the highways, doing the business of their happy little lives. "Goodbye everybody!" you wave as if you'll never return. It all looks imaginary from up there, like nothing horrible ever happens. It seems like a peaceful place.

You know what I think to myself as we're climbing up? I look out at the silver wing reaching out so strong and I think "Hold fast you mighty wing! Climb! Carry us safely onward and upward!" It's rather silly I know. I never really pay any attention to the people with me on the plane. It's always me and the wing and the clouds.

My favorite part of flying is when, if you're lucky, sometimes you'll look out the window and you'll just see white. White everywhere. Like you're outside of time and space, in some void. You're really in a cloud, but if look out the window just the right way and ignore everyone on the plane, you're just this man in the sky. Above the rain, lightning, tornadoes, oceans, everything, as if you're being carried by the hand of God Himself.

The Big Yolk. That's what I call it. The sun. The Big Yolk. The best time to fly is late afternoon into the evening. You get the day and the night. It's like a play. The sun makes his exit and whooooooooop, up comes the moon, stage left, right on cue.

Above the clouds
The clouds are
Now a mist
Now ice cream
Now a forest of white trees
Now raining
Now heaven
Now burying the sun
Now launching the moon