Dearest Brothers Wright

When I was younger, I often dreamed at night
of flying. The finesse I came by from my
nighttime visions, the knowledge of how
to move smoothly in thin air, stuck with me
during the day. I can still recall the sensation
now when I am lucid, but somehow I have
lost the privilege of those dreams. I stick
altogether to the ground, am with no wings
anymore, am pedestrian. And when I beat
my arms frantically in public, try to rise even
just an inch or two off the pavement, well,
I am much too old now, past my prime, and
it must not look very fitting. It might be equally
unfitting to address a letter, as I have done,
to Orville and Wilbur Wright. I mean no
disrespect, and I will bear in mind that you get
no rebuttal, at least not that I am expecting.
More to the point, I realize you two could not
have known all this would come, the collisions
of today. The clashing of all the new birds
with the old world air is very, very loud, I can
tell you, in case you haven't heard it.
Sometimes it feels like I hear nothing else.
Most mornings, I wake up with a jolt just
after the day-long rush of commercial flights
has begun. I have not yet found earplugs
thick enough to dampen the noise. I try to be
prepared, but can seldom rise above it, mostly
fail to fall asleep again. I am certain that we,
the three of us, once had the same knowledge
of flight that any child has, the same blind
desire for freedom. And I know that you
would not have wished the current fates on
anyone. When I was younger, I wanted
everything loud. Today I try to be quiet when
I am not making music. I try be quiet because
there are so few people left who have not been
deafened, so few places that have not been
sullied, because the sun burns holes in
the meadows and the eardrums, because so many
people have to live beneath flight patterns,
because there is nowhere on this great planet
a person can stand and not hear the sound of
jet engines every day of the year. I do still know
the feeling of flying, but my flights have never
required that any fuel be burned or that any
massive frame be constructed. I try to be quiet
so as not to mess with sacred things. In my way,
I have great designs too, just like you, Orville,
just like you, Wilbur. I am writing you this note
because I am so sure you feel the way I do
about the state of things today. And because,
on the rare occasions I do actually manage
to fall back to sleep again in the morning
despite the low-flying aircraft, it is partly with
thoughts of North Carolina, of finding
the sort of inspiration that you two came
to know long before me. It helps me pass
the days to dream of designing some great
machine, some silent and simple vehicle that
has no boundaries and takes us all back to
the places we always wanted to return to, back
to the way we dreamed things would be before
the runways paved over the plains, before
the turbines sucked all the spirits out of the sky.
The sky will be filled again some day with
ghosts and birds and virgin air. The birds will be
silent when they fly once more. Their music
will be music, not just rumbling. This time even
the crows will learn to sing sweetly. And I can't
wait. Hope you'll listen in too, wherever you are.

(1996)