Endangered Alphabets

Last week I messed up and wrote a poem for this week's prompt.  So this week I am just riffing on what's around me.  We are on the road, in Washington D.C. at the beginning of a two and a half week adventure.  This poem draft comes out of this adventure and the amazing curiosities one always finds a the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival.  A booth we stumbled upon where children spelled out words from endangered alphabets. 


Endangered Alphabets

The net of travel is uncertain at
the start.  A plane circling like an argument.
Lightning flowers blossoming from orange
stained skies. The impossible air thick with
humidity and doubt. And body after
body after body passing exhibits
under an unforgiving sun.  Until,
suddenly you come to where you are undone.
Where you break and learn to walk again
on new stilted legs, learn to weave stronger
threads with time and find weight enough to push
root against stone to find sustenance.  Until
you find the lost alphabet that spells wisdom.