Flying over the Nebraska of my life

So much of our lives dissolves.
What did I do the day before
I met you? You remember
what I was wearing that holiday.
What did I wear the next morning?
What did I write the day my mother died?

I fly at night over the plains.
There is a cluster of lights,
a starfish shape glittering. Then
darkness and darkness.
Then another clump bearing
long daisy petals of roadway.

Then nothing again. How much
of my living has fled like water
into sand. The sand is not
even damp to the hand.
Tears and wine and sparkling
water all vanish the same.

I know looking out the plane's
dirty window that there are houses,
barns, roads, trees, stores
distinct in that darkness I once
drove through. I knew them and will
never know them again.

The plane is flying from lighted
place to lighted place, but
our arc is from the dark into
brightness then back into darkness.
I want to possess my own life like a
necklace, pearl by pearl of light.

//
When in doubt I turn to Marge Piercy.

makes sense to me

"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaerin waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng istaht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe."

-- Rowland Croucher

I want to go deep-sea diving with my necklace until it's briny.
-- RSG

If your eyelids aren't sticky, you're not doing it right.
-- R & C