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Shadow Life

by Evalyn Lee

 

O, Mr. Blake, a sun halo

Skims a cloud floor

Beneath the airplane's wing—

 

Together we are flying home

To London in a trinity of light,

Space and time—the earth

 

Wears a blue grey cape,

Rivers point a way ahead,

White bright the skin

 

Of a day pleated with clouds

An angel's view, this thin edge

Of life, where we can still breathe,

 

I remain seated, Mr. Blake,

Buckled in for a British breakfast

Of sausage, mushroom and tomatoes

 

By a Rolls Royce airplane engine,

It is a miracle to be in a cold cabin

Life is layered, shared, exquisite

 

Wasteful, like the continent behind us

We are birds above a sand-laced

Shoreline, small islands,

 

Like collage cutouts blot the sea,

Humans are passing trays of food,

Glasses, mini bottles of wine,

 

As perspective ripples reality

Cities become seeds, archipelagos

I cannot name do a fast fade

 

While I write this poem,

A bridge suspended between

Continents. We move so fast

 

Tourists in our own life,

Horizons become maps we do not

Know, shadow lives we never live.