SOL25-1007
Photo: On the tarmac at ELP airport. Franklin Mountains rim the horizon.
Bumping, we lumber along.
Taking a broad right turn, we stop,
motionless with our nose pointed north.
With a sudden escalating roar,
we launch forward like
a rock from a boy’s sling.
Mesquite shrubs,
standing motionless in twilight,
zip past our windows.
Mountains, dark jagged
silhouettes rising upward,
give way to a straight horizon.
Onward we race. Onward.
Our speed ever increasing.
Faster. Faster. Much faster.
Floor and seats vibrate,
and wing flaps whir,
strange emanations.
The moment fast approaches
Almost. Soon.
Now? Yes! NOW!
We lift off runway’s end.
We rise, the desert
land recedes.
Flaps whir shut;
Engines spool down;
We relax into an easy rhythm.
Floating, floating
through a white softness,
to meet dawn face to face.
Clouds, kissed pink by the rising sun,
swirl below; boundless blue
forms a canopy above.
ELP falls away
Freed, we soar
Two hours to LAX.
Writing about my writing: Free-writing
My first draft was first written on my iPhone during a take-off from El Paso aboard an American Eagle flight headed to Los Angeles. It was running text… just words and phrases in real time. I started as we backed away from the terminal, jotting down the words and phrases as I experienced the moments of departure. I quite literally wrote during my experience. It was a free write in its finest form.
I returned to that free write five years later. It was fun to gather and organize those words from the past. It was fun to shape those words into the form of a free verse poem. It was fun to relive the experience through my own words.
Recently, I returned to my free verse poem and polished it a bit. Tweaked line breaks. Wrestled with word choice. Created stanzas. I’m satisfied with my poem for now.
These are the rewards of spontaneous free writing, of journaling.
Thank you Two Writing Teachers
for hosting Slice of Life Tuesday Challenge
where Alice Nine teaches language lessons that
Empower Students to Read and Write
I’m so glad you visited today,
and I do enjoy hearing from you!
Please share below.
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Alice, what a great poem and then to read about your process made it even better. I could tell you were over the desert when you mentioned mesquites, and then I was anxious to see where you started. There is some fabulous word choice, which when you explain how you did it, I can see why. Canopy above / boundless blue are just a couple of my favorites.
Now that is an amazing way to commute to work! I love how you captured so much of the feelings and imagery of that take off experience that you clearly experienced so many times. This is just lovely.
Your poem so perfectly captures the take-off experience. I always feel the anticipation when the plane first starts to move and then the thrill as speed increases and take-off is imminent. That being said, I really do not lie to fly and am always glad when there is once again solid ground beneath my feet.
I love the way you demonstrate the poetry seed here. It’s what I envisioned when Ada Limon said she writes poems and sticks them in a drawer, returning to them later to see what might have taken root and bloomed. Yours sure bloomed! It’s a fabulous way to feel the flight, and I like the way you used the airport abbreviations in the final stanza. You make me want to pack my suitcase and take to the friendly skies.
Thank you. So much of mentioning the thought of “seeds.” I know that is one of the hardest things for young writers to grab hold of… draft, revise, draft, let it set and get cold, revise some more. They want it to be done once they’ve put a response on paper.
Beautiful poem and then sharing the process invites other writers to slow down and use their experiences to “season” and revise!!!!