The Window Seat

This poem is about an experience I had on my plane ride home from Mexico. I hope I don't offend Harry Potter fans, but I do find J.K. Rowling irritating sometimes.

The Window Seat

The trip was over and I was flying home,
sitting in the window seat, staring

into the clouds, forever grateful

that J.K. Rowling could not

hold my attention.

Else my thoughts would have been

in a book, my mind barely amused
by forcefully colorful adjectives
describing the faces of little witches,
which boxed in my imagination

like a paint-by-number set.

My eyes would not have searched

beyond the window, to capture

a miraculous display of light

suspended in time.

A sunset, enveloped in an entire

spectrum of color, layered in horizontal stripes
from bottom to top -violet to red-

solid and spectacular
like rock strata on the horizon.

I gazed in joy and surprise.
I gazed…forever.
The moment did not end.
The colors did not fade.
And the sun did not sink.

What a chance of circumstance,
to travel west into another

time zone, just as the sun begins to set.
It was continuously beginning to…

And I, the only one

to witness it, to watch the "gold"

and see it stay, had no business

or book to attract my eyes.

Dis-tract my eyes.

I had only a fool’s faith in the window seat.