Mixed media and digital photography, 11” x 14”, Framed

GETTING OFF A PLANE IN THE MOUNTAINS

By David Frankel

The clouds were all around us as we stepped

Down from the hatch.  They weren’t shouldered, thick,

Like bulls: they lingered into vapor, kept

The cold invisible; yet we would pick

The thinnest strands to step through.  None of us

Walked fast.  The terminal looked as if it might

Evaporate like dew; the bags beside the bus’s

Stomach-doors slipped in and out of sight

Like stalking cats.  We needed to return

To even light, to air that let through color, to

Ground that didn’t lift or float, to learn,

To re-learn, permanence.  We had to view

Ourselves as fixed, or we would never land.

The imprecise would swallow us like sand.