Past and future stored away Under seat and overhead, Arranged by letter, row, and tray, Between gray dawn and solid morning, Our avatars display no dread. The instruments could not be clearer: All systems go, no signs of warning. In Kansas skies the fuselage Is buffeted by turbulence. The window’s oval (wing and prop) Fogs like an enchanted mirror — Then lightning hits us and we drop Electrified with holy terror Under the thunder’s blank barrage.

Stripped of screens, of pads and pods, The subtle thread of time unravels In shrunken space that leaves the will Cornered, graceless, forced to be still, Forced into line to be destroyed. It dawns on us we’re doomed if God’s Native mercy never travels Faster than the falling odds Or fastened to the frames of sense. But now the pilot’s voice relates An unexpected confidence; Instructed by the elements And intimacy with the fates, He steers a passage through the void —

Delivering our names and dates.