Rebooting

In the caffeine-screened trance of three thirty am
the airport population wait or sleep, slouched half-dead
in seats, across the floor with their bags for pillows,
mothers watching over their little ones, tired fathers
curled on Karrimats, as others sit outside
in the serene silence, expelling smoke slowly from
grateful lungs, feeling the journey, the miles crossed,

the miles to come exhausting minds momentarily,
the traffic of the past clogs the optic fibre,
slows the processors, though this is necessary,
a cleansing of the siphons and filters, part of
the winding-down, the first stage of relaxation,
the human network is no different, and once
the power-button has been hit, one must be patient.

When finally on the plane, jetting to a new destination,
to a place far from point of origin, thousands
of miles across sea through frozen stratosphere
stalagmites, the second stage commences, a
second coming for the soul, and regeneration
begins to take place, drinking water and taking stock,
while each fixed neuron is re-electrified slowly,
generating a spark where once there was none.