Robert M. McAlmon

From “Flying”

YOU’VE never laughed

Until the world

Has been beneath you

A mosaic map of lines and dots,

Called roads and mountains

By minute moving spots

Named men.

The jollity

Of this petty panorama!

When your plane,

Overcome with mirth,

Ripples in air pockets

With uncontrollable lurches,

Nosing down with a dart

To frighten the tiny earth;

Then recovers, fleeting

To heights beyond eyes’ seeing,

Far from ears’ hearing,

You are all tense

With the comedy of life

And the world’s being.

At night the stars

Chortle gleefully with you.

The moon beams,

Benignly sharing your joy.

Thinking: “I laugh!

The world?—rather one world,

The buffoon of them all.”