As we descended into Seattle, my husband took a photograph from the air.  Though imperfect (why the blurriness around the edges?), it was by far the best picture either of us took from there.

We moved over a poem to movement: the Boeing plant with its acres of tarmac, a crazy-quilt of parked trailers, pallets, and planes; the glossy cars dotting the airport highway; a thick cord of rail-lines beaded bright with shipping containers from the harbor nearby.

The black tank-cars of an ultra-long train (of the kind that’s been exploding lately) lay between a greeny embankment and a lone deciduous tree, adding a soupcon of controversy.  Prosperity, complexity, modernity, security formed the essence of the scene.

We teetered between anxiety and safety, the plane tilting, the vulnerability of the things on the ground mitigating our sense of pride.