this blessed plot

Happy Shakespeare's alleged birthday! Here is a poem that is a little bit about Shakespeare, and also about some other things.

It occurred to me
on a flight from London to Barcelona
that Shakespeare could have written
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England
with more authority had he occupied
the window seat next to me
instead of this businessman from Frankfurt.

Of course, after a couple of drinks
and me loaning him an ear bud
he might become so preoccupied
with Miles Davis at the Blackhawk
at 36,000 feet over one realm or other to write a word.

I imagine he'd enjoy playing with my wristwatch,
the one with the tartan band,
and when he wasn't looking out the window
he would study the ice cubes in his rotating glass.

And he'd take a keen interest
in the various announcements from the flight deck
and the ministrations of the bowing attendants,

all of which would be sadly lost on me
having gotten used to rushing above the clouds
even though 99% of humanity has never been there.

Yet I am still fond of the snub-nosed engines,
the straining harmony of the twin jets,
and even the sensation of turbulence,
jostled about high above some blessed plot,

with the sound of crockery shifting in the galley,
the frenzied eyes of the nervous passengers
and the Bard reaches for my hand
as we roar with trembling wings
into the towering fortress of a thunderhead.

—Billy Collins, "The Bard in Flight," from The Rain in Portugal, 2016.