What an epic, Max.
Well, they can’t take any chances with poets (see Patrick’s poem), & those wheelchairs, albeit their own, might….
Doug
> On Aug 10, 2016, at 9:21 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Connecting Flights
>
> [Melbourne/Auckland/SanFrancisco/Seattle]
>
> A word about overcharging
> with the morning’s hotel manager-
> and a quick dash to the lift
> as my iPhone calls me -
> it’s John for a ‘Bon Voyage’ -
>
> just not well-timed as
> up in our room, 1607,
> I’ve left my wife near fainting
> ‘I just can’t do this!’
> Rushing back to her -
>
> I lose my connection
> with John as the lift door
> slides shut on me - sorry, John.
> Everything depends on
> getting her out and into the cab.
>
> We’d planned on a 9 a.m. smooth
> departure for the airport.
> It’s after 10 when we leave.
> Air New Zealand hasn’t quite
> closed its check-in desk.
>
> The good woman says Yes,
> your wheelchair is booked.
> Here it is, and is your husband
> OK about pushing it?
> He’s not all that strong, says
>
> the wife. ‘That’s an insult!’
> I retort, clutching the handrail.
> Off we go, and soon I feel
> a certain lack of muscle
> making for slowness.
>
> At security she has to stand,
> and that’s when from behind
> I make an ill-timed lurch
> clipping her ankles. Ouch!
> I can’t apologize enough.
>
> The way to our departure gate
> is through a thousand shops
> I’d rather not have to navigate,
> nor then to steer us up a slope.
> How far is it? is time up?
>
> They find us, kindly Air
> New Zealand staff. ‘Sir,
> let me take the wheelchair.’
> Indeed he may - we show
> our boarding passes, I follow
>
> him, chair, wife, down one
> last slope, and there’s the plane
> and welcome, last to board.
> Good riddance to the chair,
> however much it helped.
>
> 2
>
> Auckland - we’ll do without
> the chair, stand in line - security
> insists no-one can wait
> for their connecting flight
> without being checked again.
>
> Time to relax and even shop -
> those t-shirts are cute and cheap -
> I’ll take them both, the Mt Cook
> Lily Orchid, pink on black -
> no lily, more a buttercup.
>
> But hurry to the connecting flight!
> Which time-zone’s this? I’m seized with fright,
> and bustle my wheel-chair-less wife
> to the wrong departure gate!
> Go back up there fast, they may not wait!
>
> If only I could tell the time,
> if numbers would stay in my head -
> they’re on my boarding pass -
> where did I put it? some safe place,
> safe as my visa in my passport!
>
> 3
>
> Once we’re landed at San Fran
> seeing our suitcases again
> will make me feel secure and safe,
> but first Homeland Security
> will scrutinize us carefully.
>
> A student’s document, stapled
> by the US consulate firmly
> in her passport, a student’s spouse’s
> document in mine. Enough, surely?
> The man in black’s doubt rouses
>
> at something on his black screen.
> He calls a colleague, shares concern.
> ‘Have you been in the Middle East
> in the last five years?’ Not me.
> We’re led away to a waiting room,
>
> our passports lodged at the end
> of a long shelf. Officers wend
> to and fro amongst several pairs
> of travelers, some in wheelchairs -
> does disability rouse suspicion?
>
> But our connecting flight!
> How can they ask their questions
> of me and say: ‘well, all right,
> go get your bags through Customs’ -
> yet leave us time to make it
>
> all the way to United Airlines
> in the next building? departing soon!
> Timidly I mention this. I gesture
> to my wife in her wheelchair -
> ‘she’s an invalid.’ He scorns the word.
>
> Yet something moves him. While
> others in ones and twos file
> to the interview room, he returns
> us our passports, points to the door.
> From which we speed - to another queue.
>
> Wait your turn to the baggage hall.
> Find your carousel - what number?
> empty of bags, but there are ours!
> bunched nearby, one two three four.
> I can’t manage them on a trolley
>
> plus my disabled wife, but ask -
> and a worker’s here for the task.
> Out he leads us, past ‘Connecting
> Flights’, to the wide intersecting
> of walkways with numbers on.
>
> Check your Bags Here. We do.
> Follow through to United, who
> have their own labyrinth. Where’s
> our Seattle connection? how soon?
> We just make it. Some afternoon!
>
> 4
>
> Mount Rainier shines in summer light.
> The wheelchair person at SeaTac
> has a son in Kalgoorlie, which she likes!
> She’s from Fiji! I praise their footballers.
> I’d tip her if I could find my dollars.
Douglas Barbour
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https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
How, but thru a monstrous 'specialism', the so-called authority of erstwhile 'professionals', have we come to leave breath out of images and images out of breath, anyhow?
Roy Kiyooka
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