Glim of Empire—International Concourse SFO
The Pennsylvania snot otter, endangered, leads the news crawl,
trends above POTUS, also endangered, while Mike Kappel,
self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur, hawks Patriot Software.
Oh, boy. Crowded. Last summer Greenland was cloudless—
cloudless! clutched in earth’s blue curve. On every prior flight
in high-latitude light—veiled, ice-mizzled, boundless…
Last summer—after seeing the skates at Dove Cottage, I pictured
him gliding over frozen Windermere, recalled that he crossed
Place du Carrousel gleaning all the frailties of the world, and yet
believed self-knowledge superior to any past, in thrall
to independent intellect, to brute Romanticism we still
can’t shake, old fear we fall out of nature through desire
to see into the life of things, to be everywhere at home—
beneath soaring wings, atmosphere so warm the ice island
flashed as scores of melt-ponds pocked the riddled white.
