Vapor Trails

Twin streaks twice higher than cumulus,

Precise plane icetracks in the vertical blue

Cloud-flaked light-shot shadow arcing

Field of all future war, edging off to space.

Young expert U.S.pilots waiting

The day of criss-cross rockets

And white blossoming smoke of bomb,

The air world torn and staggered for these

Specks of brushy land and ant-hill towns—

I stumble on the cobble rockpath,

Passing through temples,

Watching for two-leaf pine

—spotting that design.