At the San Francisco Airport

Yvor Winters

This is the terminal: the light

Gives perfect vision, false and hard;

The metal glitters, deep and bright.

Great planes are waiting in the yard--

They are already in the night.

And you are here beside me, small,

Contained and fragile, and intent

On things that I but half recall--

Yet going whither you are bent.

I am the past, and that is all.

But you and I in part are one:

The frightened brain, the nervous will,
The knowledge of what must be done,

The passion to acquire the skill

To face that which you dare not shun.

The rain of matter upon sense

Destroys me momently. The score:

There comes what will come.  The expense

Is what one thought, and something more--

One's being and intelligence.

This is the terminal, the break.

Reminds me of my grandpa a bit(: Favorite poem I've studied so far.