Christmas Time in Coronado

The attack jets come in low
over the ocean
past the tennis courts and the Duchess's cottage,
in tandem
low over the Navy golf course
headed for the North Island airstrip
then wheel to the left
out over the water again,
the afternoon's last light
making a movie set of the offshore islands
around and back once more
past the grand old wooden hotel and its cupolas
with a series of watery, high-pitched whups
as they cut back their engines
and disappear over the ridge.

The town seems very still, almost empty, rich.
Christmas displays in store windows.
A goodly stream of cars.
The traffic lights make a sound, too, bird-like.
I often get confused.
The roaring overhead. The traffic noise.
There is no place to go.

Out on the Silver Strand
the joggers and sweethearts take in the sunset
the air overhead as busy as war
Skyhawks, Vigilantes, Intruders
the cargo and surveillance planes
sub hunters, gunships
Phantom, Tomcat, Cobra...
It must have given the late President
great succor out there in his compound
those long troubled evenings in San Clemente
to see the lights
and track the arc of the distant thunder
as he sat, with a drink, looking
out that enormous window at the sea, the stars
a blur of light from the distant pier.

I have read, of the late President
from those who had been close to him, through it all
that he had in him a reflective
one might even say philosophical cast of mind.
I wouldn't know to say it wasn't true.
I wouldn't know to say.
But I myself have been thinking constantly of America.
Only of late, only here
with the might of the nation roaring overhead around the clock
spewing vapor from their strakes
going fucking nowhere
and noisily coming back.

Poem: Christmas Time in Coronado by August Kleinzahler (1998), from the collection Sleeping it Off in Rapid City, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2008)

Image: An Osprey Warming up After Midnight, Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan by Eduardo Plarr