"For a plane that disappears over the sea" [M Bromberg]

"For a plane that disappears over the sea"

[M Bromberg]

[3/19/2014: Malaysian flight 370 with 239 passengers, missing eleven days and still unlocated, possibly in the Indian Ocean from an act of suspected terrorism.]  

In time,
when wreckage is found
floating in the water,
we will be reminded
how ordinary words failed
to keep the plane from harm,
how reasons were offered
for the unreasonable act. 

The discovery of shoes & luggage,
or the airplane's fantail seen bobbing
like a child's toy,
will resurrect old fears
of terror and madness
that surface like ghosts
shadowing our everyday lives: 

children continue to go to the zoo,
mail is delivered, dinner prepared;
our own small deaths
are still planned out & plotted
fully expecting nothing bad
will happen to us today. 

Our ordered lives are comfort
even as headlines remind us
that life itself is not so.
For unimaginable reasons
planes will fall out of the sky, 

plagues rage, nations war on
their own people; life is extinguished
without regard. Reminded then
of such uncertainty and
each day's unremarkable terror,
we hope for benediction  

as those who fall at last and forever

into the arms of the sea,

for the solace of the waves

in their deep and dreamless peace,

for the end of all earthly sorrow.