Flying
By Sarah Arvio
One said to me tonight or was it day
or was it the passage between the two,
"It's hard to remember, crossing time zones,
the structure of the hours you left behind.
Are they sleeping or are they eating sweets,
and are they wanting me to phone them now?"
"In the face of technological fact,
even the most seasoned traveler feels
the baffled sense that nowhere else exists."
"It's the moving resistance of the air
as you hurtle too fast against the hours
that stuns the cells and tissues of the brain."
"The dry cabin air, the cramped rows of seats,
the steward passing pillows, pouring drinks,
and the sudden ridges of turbulence. . ."
"Oh yes, the crossing is always a trial,
despite precautions: drink water, don't smoke,
and take measured doses of midday sun,
whether an ordinary business flight
or a prayer at a pleasure altar. . .
for moments or hours the earth out of sight,
the white cumuli dreaming there below,
warm fronts and cold fronts streaming through the sky,
the mesmerizing rose-and-purple glow."
"So did you leave your home à contrecoeur?
Did you leave a life? Did you leave a love?
Are you out here looking for another?
Some want so much to cross, to go away,
somewhere anywhere & begin again,
others can't endure the separation. . ."
One night, the skyline as I left New York
was a garden of neon flowerbursts--
the celebration of a history.
____________
My Icons
badgirls: The wonderfully evil Kai Winn. When her gods ignored her, she went out and got herself new gods! She also had hot sex with the villainous Gul Dukat, regularly dissed Sisko and got away with condescending to Kira. Plus she tried to have her rival assassinated the very first time we saw her. And she was played by Louise Fletcher, thus allowing me to indulge my Mama Dracula fantasies.
slashdirector: I became a Cruise Director during a brief bit of silliness on the Robert Beltran fan message board on America Online during Voyager's first season, so I figured I should have an icon with Julie from The Love Boat and all her men. If anyone has ever slashed Fred Grandy, particularly since he began his career as a political right-winger, please send it on.
loveboat: Same theme, different icon. This is my most generic icon, which I attach to gratuitous fan fiction posts that don't fit into some other category for which I already have an icon (LOTR, Trek, etc.) I wish the image capture were clearer and that you could really see the boat.
firstamendment: Unfortunately I couldn't get my cheap GIF animator to put this together slowly enough for people really to have time to read the amendment, but during one of Ashcroft's volleys last year I decided I needed to display it in some form anyway. I stole the last frame, "The First Amendment: it's not just a good idea, it's the Law," from an old .sig of
flamingjune: Originally I wanted all my icons to be artsy rather than to reflect my cheesy entertainment preferences. We see how long that plan lasted. This is my one remaining artsy icon, that I use every morning with poetry posts -- Frederick Leighton's "Flaming June." I think the eroticism gets lost when the painting is reduced to this size but it's still very pretty. And she's not a waiflike Victorian girl or anything annoying.
spockslash: At one point when it seemed like every single post I was making had to do with slash, I decided I needed an icon with this slogan. I used to use one with Aragorn with a big sword with exactly the same slogan. I've been through several LOTR icons since then, but this has stayed my Classic Trek icon pretty much since I've been on LJ, though sometimes I think I should revert to K/S from "Requiem For Methuselah."
devilviggo: Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer in The Prophecy. If any Devil could make me do anything, he would look like this. This is both my "Devil's Advocate" icon when I'm arguing and my "oh my god Viggo is hot" icon when I'm drooling over him. It's also the icon I use with any religious-themed post, even though I do not, technically, believe in the Devil. Let me put it this way: I get along with Lucifer a hell of a lot better than I get along with FundamentalistGayBashingWomanHatingWarmongering!Jesus.
abslash: I've had an icon with this designation since I got my LJ, though the icons have changed regularly; this is just the latest incarnation, inspired by some of the artwork by Shepherd Moon and the Theban Band. It's supposed to be Aragorn and Boromir but if you want to look at it as Viggo and Sean, that's your business. *g*
frodofailed: I received the original, large version of this joke uncredited via e-mail so unfortunately I have no idea whom to credit for it. It neatly combines my affection for LOTR and my terror of the man in the White House.
warnothealthy: I tend to rotate my political buttons so they don't get stale; a couple of weeks ago I had Viggo in an anti-war shirt, a couple of weeks before that I had a patriotic pacifist button. I have this slogan with a slightly different picture on a button from the late 1960s, inherited from a family friend who protested the war in Vietnam, and I like the historical connection as well as the message.
You can see a lot more of my icons here.
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