Vista
Dec 9 2013


I was disappointed
when I saw it from a thousand feet.
Shouting over the engine
in the cold cramped Cessna,
suspended between gravity, and lift,
headwind, and speed.

The towering evergreens
were reduced to stunted stubs.
The commanding vistas
seemed insignificant,
thick valleys
shallow, less lush.
My vast topography
had flattened out
into minor gradations
of earth-tone, and dusty green,
my sense of place
irrevocably shrunk.

And the house
in its seclusion of trees
appeared exposed, unprotected.
And far too close
to all the others
to ever offer refuge again;
the illusion of escape
so essential to me.

We prefer landscapes
that tower over us,
to feel dwarfed
by magnificence, and age.
That these unassuming hills
were sheer verticals, gleaming Matterhorns,
these spindly trees
giant redwoods
millennia old.
We want to disappear
into nature's tiny folds,
with vistas vast enough
to take our breath away
each time we look out.
Or to at least
imagine it so.

I wish I had never flown.
Had remained
in the dappled shade
of my lofty canopy,
dark green trees
rising high overhead.
Had broken trail,

hauling myself
up and down my slopes.

The frame of reference
suitable to mostly hairless
2-legged mammals
is on the ground.
To pretend we are gods, looking down
can only leave us diminished;
too big
for the world,
too small to count.

This memory of a local low-level flight -- an unexpected offer from an acquaintance at work -- still leaves me disappointed. It's been well over a decade; but I think back to that rarefied view, and how it diminished my sense of place, how it shrunk the beauty of my chosen landscape, modest as it is. Which need not be a west coast rain forest or alpine redoubt; a carefully nurtured illusion of beauty and seclusion will do well enough. 

We are inconsistent creatures. We relentlessly dominate nature, or at least imagine ourselves exempt. But we also love the awe-inspiring view, and seem to love how a vast timeless landscape makes us feel small: as if we need our insignificance reinforced, our hubris corrected.

Anyway, this experience intermittently comes back to me. I thought it was about time to try to make a poem out of it.