Ode to CDG

Just to show that we at the Nanaimo Flying Club are a cultured and enlightened lot, today’s post:

ODE TO CDG
(Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris)
Even more than music, or muzak, an airport
is international, the ultimate
gated community, and if no longer
elite, at least self-sufficient.

With its intersecting spars and hightech
brushed steel, this is no one’s home:
here we are all transients, leafing through magazines,
sprawling on well-designed benches
to catch a few minutes’ sleep. It does not work.

Though heart and eye might otherwise rejoice at
the clean lines of boutiques and elegant walkways,
PA warnings, boarding announcements
remind us not to relax. At all hours we know
we are being scanned by hidden cameras,
everything’s taken care of, we are protected from contact
with every element except fear, and have nowhere to go.

Night Vision; Christopher Levenson