at standard cruising altitude
sipping my digestive
after a quite decent hot lunch
on the flight from Vienna to Athens

I gaze through the scratched
double plexiglass bulleye
shielding me from the outside world
and try to pierce the blinding haze
of a lazy spring afternoon
hiding from me

   the people shot by snipers
   the shelling of suburbs
   the burning houses
   the crowded hospitals
   of Sarajevo, Gorazde, Mostar, Zadar ...

suspended in diffuse light
all I can see is
   the silhouette of an occasional
       snow-capped mountain range

there is no sign
of human suffering

*May 1992