Flight — Clock Counting

AUTHOR NARRATION

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Read by the author in the original English.

FlightEnglish narration

IMAGERY AND WORDPLAY

Schools and Skeins

Select either fragment to see clouds gather like a school of fish or wave crests fly in a skein of birds. The note beneath the image follows your selection.

Peach-and-ivory clouds form a school of fish swimming together through the sky above the sea. — SKY BECOMES SEA · SEA BECOMES SKYA school in the sky

Birdlike whitecaps cross turquoise water in a broad V-shaped skein. — SKY BECOMES SEA · SEA BECOMES SKYA school in the sky

AN ALLITERATIVE GRADIENT

I find it remarkably pleasing how this line moves from /s/ to /k/, with “schools” bridging them through /sk/. Beneath that, “simmer” and “summer” share a /mər/ ending, while “schools,” “cool,” and “clouds” each carry an /l/ sound.

/s/simmer summer

/sk/schools

/k/cool clouds

THE CARIBBEAN

An island field from above.

A wide view places Puerto Rico among Hispaniola, the Virgin Islands, and the long arc of the Lesser Antilles.

ON THE POEM

Written in Flight.

In my early twenties, after I started to work entirely from home, for some reason I had the romantic notion of living in the tropics. I wrote this poem on my flight out to Puerto Rico, where I ended up residing for several months (and also met and dated one of the book's dedicatees).

The person briefly addressed in this poem—to whom no soul had held a light—is the same man who taught me the word Luciérnagas.

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