Why don't more people look out from airplanes?

The man of nary a century past, what he would have given!
The poet of old, how desperately his soul longed for what we see!
All of humanity, how it dreamed and fantasized what it would be like to fly!

And yet we, the upper crust, the 1%
Politely ask our neighbor to close the window so the glare doesn’t get on our screen.

Is this what it is to be a man?

To see such spectacular wonders
And wonder
Why is this damn flight taking so long?

30,000 feet or silicon, take your choice.
What is a man to do when the wonder stops wondering?

Burning! Burning! Modern Icarus, we. We fly towards the sun.
Burning! Burning! We have made our own star!
Burning! Burning! We who have it all have none!

From above I have seen the pointy peaks of the Himalaya
The thundering glaciers of Greenland
The fire of New England in the fall.

But my neighbor
Watches Despicable Me 3 and asks if it is chicken or beef for dinner.

To wonder takes effort, ‘tis true
Far easier to close the shade, and never wonder at all.
Hollow men, hollow tube

Is it fear that stops them?
The view out the window, does it stare back?

That view out there is limited by the horizon
While the whole world is in my pocket, they say
And airplane windows make for poor pictures anyway.

By Evan Patrohay