1. con·trail
noun /ˈkänˌtrāl/
A trail of condensed water from an aircraft or rocket at high altitude, seen as a white streak against the sky*
Today
The stroller left
Three tracks
In the dry brown dirt,
Slow contrails
From a micro trip
Through tall yellow grass,
Cattails glittering with dew-glass,
And sun-crowned
Scottish thistles.
The sounds of a diminutive metropolis
Hum around us--
Crickets chirruping contentedly,
Songbirds babbling,
trill-flit,
The steady chuck-chuck of a
Pasture sprinkler,
And a horse
Chewing in time.
You point a chubby finger,
Pausing for the word
Your mouth hasn't tasted yet.
I love your round
Cheeks,
Orange tiger-striped
Jammas,
And your expression,
Discovering the world.
Content today
To make slow contrails in the dirt
And watch an airplane hurry on her way,
Trailing a silver buttermilk cloud
As she rises over
A hazy mountain
With a faint buzz
And disappears.
Some day
I'll be tracing my finger
Across the sky,
Watching your contrails
As you hurry off to conquer the world.
The little pointing finger
Will be gone,
And I'll remember this bucolic morning,
My little boy's
Tubby figure clad in
Tiger-striped jammas,
Looking at me as if
I were the whole world.
When it's my turn to fly over that
Mountain,
High up on my way to
Arrivederci,
I'll crane my neck
And strain my eyes,
Not for India's Mahal,
But for a little
Dirt path
In the leaning afternoon grass
And a little boy
Frozen in time.
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