American Sky Bird

Up in the air, Reznor's voice is so much clearer: "Oh, my beautiful
liar, oh my precious whore, my disease my infection, i am so impure."
But I feel very pure, flying in this bird of the future. Between seas
of clouds, i see land below: cubist paintings of geometric wheat farms,
Narnia forests pocked with clearcuts and lego cities crawling with
traffic. i feel a deep connection with one little red car zigging
and zagging on the miniature highway. Oh "baby, you're too much too fast;" a kindred spirit, really.

i'm interupted. "Oh, yes, I'll have a Wild Turkey on the rocks." I flip through the Air Wares catalog. i could buy the robotic pen of the future, a renaissance eagle and lawn chair or an autographed picture of Wayne Gretzky.

i chat with my single serving friend, a Universty administrator. We talk about the economy, Wimbledon and Hamlet. We talk about Arizona, the golfing there and the
Anasazi ruins. How those ancient ones must have lived, growing their corn and beans, hunting the occasional antelope! What heavenly arid views they must have had from their airy, mountain fortresses! Could they imagine a world that was not sage, red rock and blue sky? Where did Kokopelli's flute song lead them? To a lusher land? To Wall Street? To Hamlet's unknown country?

i pull out my flute and play a lustful melody, one that
transports my fellow travelers to the green meadows of Ireland, to the
dragon head of a Viking treader, to a grassy plain flooded with black
rivers of bison. A flight attendant politely asks me to put my flute
away. i smile at Her and do so. The inflight movie starts. The talking
dog fails to hold my attention.

Out the window, I can see factories and then the sea. Where are you going, you American sky bird of the future? "Somewhere exotic?" Hawaii? Utopia? The very stars want to know.