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Column 211

From the Plane

Intro by Ted Kooser
04.15.2009

Some of you are so accus­tomed to fly­ing that you no longer sit by the win­dows. But I’d guess that at one time you gazed down, after dark, and looked at the lights below you with inno­cent won­der. This poem by Anne Marie Macari of New Jer­sey per­fect­ly cap­tures the gauzi­ness of those lights as well as the lone­li­ness that often accom­pa­nies travel.

From the Plane

It is a soft thing, it has been sifted   
from the sieve of space and seems   
asleep there under the moths of light.   

Cluster of dust and fire, from up here   
you are a stranger and I am dropping   
through the funnel of air to meet you.

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We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2008 by Anne Marie Macari and reprinted from "She Heads into the Wilderness," Autumn House Press, 2008, by permission of Anne Marie Macari. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.