Half the world is blue, where we fly

Along the horizon, periwinkle shading

Up to dome of indigo, everyone’s

Favorite color in all its tones, ready

To be with the click of a mouse selected

And below us all white insubstantiality

Vague ripples in a calm sea of cloud

 

Behind us, invisible the mark we make

But still make, with the very stuff of sky

Fog of breath, persistence of carbon dioxide

Mingled in a scattered mist of molecules

Sowing, like farmers, the stratosphere

With crystal seeds, an uncertain crop

To grow toward the certain harvest-time

​

Over Wyoming the sea drains to lakes of cloud

And far below we see land, dry land, valleys

Dotted with green rings of watered fields

Split by sharp ridges above tree-blurred slopes

And fine-etched stream-lines twisting down

Conveyors of snow from high to low

Some promise made in that eroded history

 

Down there, a whole world of rooted trees

Of tended fields, of houses, of people looking up

Assumptions built on nothing more than vapor

On this atmosphere, thickening overhead

Fanned by our flames, moving every day faster

Faster, and faster still, leaving them all

To catch, to try to catch, their ragged breath

​

Atmosphere

© Pepper Trail