It was the end of the day,

yet daylight lingered towards a tardy dusk,

sun setting fire to water.

In twilight, I walked the beach,

watched gulls ride the sea wind.

Silent, above the clouds,

made small by stratospheric flight,

a jet traversed the arc of sky,

became a bright star in the east,

was gone.

Yet its contrail lingered, a cursive line

upon amorphous cloud and light.

What wonder, this Shiva

that has shrunken the Earth,

brought all within day’s reach −

brainchild of dreamers

who glimpsed a vision

and grasped it.

Richard Bronson is on the Faculty of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care & Bioethics at Stony Brook University. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Walt Whitman Birthplace and the current Suffolk County Poet Laureate.