Remembering the Longest Day on Earth on the Eve of the Election

POETRY

by Joshua Tilton

37,000 feet above glacial Norway, whitecaps
burnished in the escaping sunset, I saw the sun
resurrect, tremendous and bright—the sun, rising,
in the west. The plane was en route to Frankfurt,
descending from the arctic circle at sundown.
We chased the equator, and as degrees of latitude
gave way, in a brief and violent delight, the sun stood still,
before, like magic, it clawed its way back, back up the sky, un-
touching the mountains, refusing the onset of night. 
I wondered—who else on earth has made the setting sun
into a sunrise? We did, in our sleek metal tube,
high above the stark hills of Norway, outpacing the dark
and returning the sun to its place in the sky. In our pockets:
the power to bring back yesterday. We held it loose.