Chasing the Sun

In an airplane sometimes you seem to pursue the sun. 

You’re heading west as the setting sun does too, 

And the sunset hangs there refusing to be done, 

Impossibly long - a smear of orange on blue. 

Of course in fact the earth is spinning east. 

That’s the rotation against which your plane is racing, 

That’s why you see a glow that just won’t cease, 

That’s how you go on facing the star you’re chasing.