Once launched

wing we this wondrous thing aloft,

this unseen

pillar immaterial.

Yet so strong to lift us up a feather,

not machine,

to share with birds in gyre

this lifting force that drives

the scudding clouds,

and us,

along in heating day,

engineless.

Boiling uprise of heated air,

escalator of the skies

lifts us up beyond

high-rise human Babel.

Look down on the patchwork quilt of earth -

look up to highest heaven;

either way elicits praise.

And in our up-welling silent progress

we learn faith’s meaning from this

thermal  metaphor –

we stay aloft by the substance

of things unseen,

by evidence only hoped for.

James Gagiikwe  © 2008