The Runway at Tamga

Above Tamga on the south shore lies a runway with no airport attached anymore: military once, concrete slabs to the horizon, grass working the joints with geological patience. You can drive onto it, which is to say nothing stops you, which is to say I was always going to.

I parked the Niva dead center on the line and let it have the fantasy. A ground vehicle on that much cleared distance looks brave and slightly presumptuous, like a pigeon in a cathedral. The evening was doing serious work, storm gold on the ranges, poplars going black, the cracked slabs holding the last warm light in their seams.

I leaned on the fender until the light finished. Planes took off from here toward matters I have only read about; now it hosts one novelist, one small red car, and the largest quietness on the lake. Some infrastructure retires into poetry. This strip has.