Distrail

I can't quite track what mental trail led me to the concept of distrail, but once explored I was fascinated yet again by what I haven't known. Years ago I was very moved by Leonard Shlain's proclamation in The Alphabet versus the Goddess that, "Fish have not yet discovered water." It seems to quite sum up the condition of existence, or at least to sum up for me how little I know about the physical world, living in it though I purportedly am.

So, to distrail.

The website http://www.weatherscapes.com explains it as follows:

A distrail, short for dissipation trail, forms when an aircraft flies through a supercooled cloud. The cloud freezes due to the disturbing airflow created by the aircraft, as well as by the addition of plenty of freezing nuclei due to the aircraft's exhaust gases.

It is disconcerting to me to think that such a thing of beauty (do check out some of the images on the web for distrail) is created by what is otherwise a violation of the elements. Smog itself, of course, creates the loveliest of sunsets. The perpetual paradox, giving rise to my lines below:

Distrail

It was folly to think
that clouds were
invincible,
but they were young
and required hope
to dare,
or, if not that exactly,
required at least the absence of
Futility, and its
trailing servant,
Despair.

Then
the inevitable
occurred,
(as it must,
as it always has):
the perfect sky was
ruptured, blurred:
a "dissipation trail" that cleaved
the blameless clouds.

(The agent of this tragedy
needs no name.
It is all the same,
whatever bears the shrouds.)

For years after they ceased
to seek the skies, but
now, grateful to raise their heads,
they bless sunset, sunrise:
at peace with rupture gone unmended.

Finding beauty
where no beauty was
intended.