Two sonnets from Coast to Coast

The View from an Airplane at Night, over California

This is a sight that Wordsworth never knew,

whether looking down from mountain, bridge, or hill:

An endless field of lights, white, orange, and blue,

as small and bright as stars, and nearly still,

but moving slowly, many miles below,

in blackness, as stars crawl across the skies,

and ranked in rows that stars will never know,

like beads strung on a thousand latticed ties.

Would even Wordsworth, seeing what I see,

know that these lights are not well-ordered stars

that have been here a near-eternity,

but houses, streetlights, factories, and cars?

Or has this slim craft made too high a leap

above it all, and is the dark too deep?

Saxophone

Walking down Seventh Avenue in the snow

I turn down Forty-eighth Street and see

a dozen guitars hanging in a window.

Lord, it’s the place where I bought my saxophone.

Suddenly I remember: twelve years old,

my voice about to change, the instrument

heavy in my hands, bright gold, ice cold.

I blew my lungs out, but it only brayed.

The salesman reached out, took it away from me,

wiped the mouthpiece on his sleeve, and rent

the warm air with a perfect bell-like tone.

My father and I smiled, and the salesman played

an old, familiar Hoagy Carmichael song,

and the stockboy put down a box and sang along.