Planes

From where I stand
The clouds spread in every direction.
Multitudes, thundery but not black.
A plane slides under them,
Heavy and slow as it
Approaches landing –
Yet drifting beneath the clouds
Ponderous but floating easy
In its controlled fall.

The afternoon clouds
And the warm sunshine
Are filled with planes
Coming home
Like bees I have
Watched circling their hive
Gliding in weighty
With nectar or pollen.

Planes, cumbersome with lives.
Lives gliding in from elsewhere.
Returning home?
Leaving home?
Parting, endeavouring,
Loving, enduring
Lives come sinking to earth
From the forever sunlit
Starlit place above.

I know,
As the sky sounds to
The hum of another flying giant,
That I want to go home.

Copyright ©2001 Tony Crisp