My Hovercraft is Full of Eels

My flight onto Asheville, North Carolina is delayed because the crew has­n’t arrived yet, and then a big thun­der storm hit, and light­en­ing strikes inside the air­port com­pound means that no planes are mov­ing for a while. A good while.

I’m sit­ting here enjoy­ing hear­ing the sweet drawl of the Southern accents and see­ing Black faces again.  Laura tells me that there are still big divi­sions between the African American and white com­munties in Asheville, and that she is enga­ging with the African American com­munity through poetry.

Atlanta air­port is huge.  Detroit air­port was humung­ous.  At each air­port there’s a slick, mod­ern, bur­row­ing indoor train to take you to your gate. Edinburgh air­port is a small rodent to these dinosuars. Everything here is huge.  Big cars, big roads, big fridges, big bel­lies.  The high aver­age car­bon foot­print of the aver­age American is so alarm­ingly visible.

Delta is the Greyhound of the skies, the Ryan air of the States.  Most flights are overbooked.

On land­ing at Detroit we are told that small hand-held elec­tric­al gad­gets can be used again, and fin­gers are out tap­ping cell phones, smart phones, ipods and the like before we even get to the gate.

All of us fly­ing with so many per­son­al pos­ses­sions. How would it be if we trav­elled with little but the clothes we stood up in and a full wel­com­ing heart? No gad­gets, no char­gers, no wheel-pulled cases.  Just a note­book and a pen and my glasses to read.

Give me a red cres­ted Sandhill Crane to ride.  No air con­di­tioned cab­in, Coca Cola vend­ing, inter­com announce­ments and flat screen news.  With a ka-r-ouk, ka-r-ouk we’d be off tak­ing a non-pre­scribed line safely below the clouds, powered by a gen­er­ous cubit of feathered grace and with the sum­mer air on our legs.