Plane to Denver
by Nels Hanson
“‘Say there is a devil, an evil being with body
and face, hands like ours,’ a patient told me
once, a wealthy trial attorney certain all his
clients were guilty. ‘On one long finger He
wears a special ring that flickers bright and
dark, our Night and Day,’” Dr. Edwards’
weary ghost whispered as my shoulders froze
and shivered before the cabin’s dim ceiling
shifted and I could leap up running the aisle’s
chute to wait alone in the locked bathroom
away from razor scarps changing to a dead
god’s jagged teeth. Sky beyond the porthole
appeared softer, shaded rose, lit by Earth light.
Warm sun bathed my arm as I glimpsed past
a distant crest a vast basin brimming gold.
I could breathe again and saw the jet’s frail
shadow crossing split towers of the terrible
ruined kingdom. Summits fell away easily
to gently sloping hills and wide valleys and I
leaned for a closer embrace. I saw the green
land unfold remembering lost Ellen loved
wildflowers, grasses, fresh hand-like summer
leaves she sketched in pastel or brushed
in careful watercolor. She knew the wren’s
bill and rakish cut of a waxwing’s black
mask, caught in one stroke the striped cap
of an English sparrow. In her fingers dull
rock came alive in a green-blue vein, all
rivers’ curving promise of a single source
and destination. Everything—plume and
pebble, catalpa’s jigsaw bark, spoked rays
of water beads after rain, persimmon on
the sill a setting sun passing seven bands
of orange—reflected a place beyond sight.
Her slightest gesture said “See?” until I
sensed a vantage the waking heart’s eye
might disover. When Ellen placed a foxtail
seed’s feathered arrow like a perfect dart
or blue robin egg’s calm oval in my palm
she meant to tell me it was impossible to die.
Copyright © 2013 by Nels Hanson.
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