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TA K E H E A RT

A Conversation in Poetry

Edited & Introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2001 by Kristen Lindquist. Reprinted from Invocation to the Birds, Oyster River press, 2001, by permission of Kristen Lindquist. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to David Turner, Special Assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at poetlaureate@mainewriters.org or 207-228-8263.

Who hasn’t been dispirited by today’s air travel? Yet the experience brings happiness to Kristen Lindquist of Camden. Her uplifting poem shows what the rest of us may have missed.

Transportation

By Kristen Lindquist

Everyone in O’Hare is happy today. Sun shines benevolently

onto glorious packaged snack foods and racks of Bulls T-shirts.

My plane was twenty minutes early.

Even before I descend into the trippy light show of the walkway between terminals, I am ecstatic. I can’t stop smiling. On my fight we saw Niagara Falls and Middle America green and gold below. Passengers thanked the pilot for his smooth landing with such gratitude that I too

thanked him, with sudden and wholehearted sincerity. A group of schoolchildren passes on the escalator, and I want to ask where they’re going. Tell me your story, I want to say. This is life in motion.

A young couple embraces tearfully at a gate; she’s leaving, he’s not.

How can I bring this new self back to you, intact? He yells to her departing back, “Hey, I like the way you move!” Any kind of love seems possible. We walk through this light together. So what if it’s an airport? So what if it won’t last?