By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
Odyssey
We board planes
flying against dawn
climbing to cruising altitudes
looking down
into the macrocosmic mirror
of ourselves:
The Buddha’s hand meditating desert
arteries exposed
the spinal columns of continents
bending into capillaries
feeding the fascia of farmland
Bone white marrow
of Northwestern Plaines
signaling the condensation
of our final approach:
The humming grey matter
of New York
Passing from one terminal
to another
connecting flights
Northeast along earth’s cranium
into darkness
sparingly splattered
by islands of electric impulses
Pulling shades
over the relativity of senses
losing track of time’s toll
Nudged awake
by the seatbelt signs of gravity
falling onto morning’s escalators
into an underworld
of high speed trains
surrendering Medieval stations
to weary travelers
offering alms for two sunrises
in less than 20 hours
Magnetically pulled back
along rails to runways
shooting down tarmac
to write lives in icy contrails of air
with wings
on yet another marathon race
with the cyclops sun
We open our eyes’ windows
grasping for landmarks
in unfamiliar terrain
Our horseless chariot
driving us deeper
into the maze of unknowing
Before nightfall:
A solitary star
pierces “the rosy fingers”
of evening’s dawn
The lighthouse of love:
Venus
holding her lamp
on the outer edges
of our conscious Acropolis
welcoming us home