Heads or Tails #17 - Sky

This week's topic is either sky or space (heads) or in/under water (tails). I chose to go with Sky, because once upon a time I spent a summer in the sky.

It was 1989, and I was living just outside of Minneapolis, staying with my much older half-brother and his (former) wife. I had just finished a very turbulent first year of college, during which my parents separated. I came out to Minnesota to work for Ricky and to learn how to fly.

I loved being in the air - it was amazing, terrifying, awe-inspiring and every other synonym you can look up.  It was also incredibly difficult. Not the actual flying part, but all of the rules, regulations and protocols that you had to learn and remember. Flying a small plane is dangerous. And expensive - which is why I haven't been up in the air (at the controls anyway) since that summer, so long ago.

Someday, perhaps I will again.

A burst of sunshine

washes out blue sky

above me

clouds mask the Earth below

I fly over a stark ivory world

where mountains

and valleys appear solid

yet are vaporous haze

whiteness surrounds me-

I'm lost in a snowy desert

As the world spins away

beneath me.

(written: fall, 1990)

Check out other Heads or Tails posts at Skittles' Place.