Wingspread

January 10, 1983

So the wingspread of a merely large raven landing on a power pole has shrouded a pair of wires causing cascading breaks in service? A 34,000 volt short circuit that blacked out half the population of Alaska? So what? The sudden enfolding arms of a lover construe catenas of transformation further than even those hundred miles to Talkeetna. Whereas for Anchorage and its sequential utilities, for blanked out businesses, deserted restaurants, garages, arenas, for collisions in unillumined traffic the two to seven hours of inconvenience has ended, in spite of incidental flares of overheating due to restoration: this other laying-on of life may never stop. My time is fired by yours. My years resist their earthbound current. This eagle shunt sends me high beyond and higher beyond my station. Abide with me abandoning ground.