Fraught,

v. Obs. exc. in pa. pple.: see next. (frɔːt) Forms: 5 fraght, 5–7 Sc. fraucht, 6– fraught. pa. tense and pa. pple. 6–7 fraught, fraughted. [f. prec. n.; cf. MDu. vrachten, Ger. frachten, Da. fragte, Sw. frakta.] †1.1 trans.

1. To load (a ship) with cargo: = freight v. 1. Obs.

2. To drive a loved one to the airport and drop them off for a week. “It always is fraught with that one  moment when they are entering the terminal, you can no longer see them and, like a baby who has no object permanence, you ask, “Is this forever.” v. Mod.Idiosyncratic.

I dropped my wife off at the Louisville airport for a visit with daughters and sisters out West.  I get to take care of the farm and have Thanksgiving with my son’s family.  Compensations, n’est-ce pas?

I am reminded of a poem I wrote a few years ago about taking my daughter to the airport.  Fraught.  Reminds me that the origins of that word lay in “freight”.  Carrying folks we love to places so they can fly away from us. Precious cargo gone fly baby on me. I read it and am grateful to be able to share.  Not as good as my Dad’s turkey dressing, but passable fair.

 

 

Driving to the Nashville Airport, April 4, 2017

Driving to the Nashville Airport, April 4, 2017
In a ten year old Honda on I-65
I drink in fresh redbuds through the wet slap of wipers
Breathing back and forth, intermittent arcs, respiring.

Dawn is small
and the spring rain tastes inviolable.
I drive my daughter to the airport.

The galaxy spins in my car’s backseat
with hazel eyes and rings tattooed on her fingers
She is flying away. Again.

I don’t care.
I really don’t.
The wiper blades judge, “No. No. Lies.”

“Closer and closer,”
the milemarkers scream reflectively.
She is my whole life in the mirror in the backseat. I am dying.

A straight-line wind knocks me two lanes toward the median
(Object in mirror is closer than it appears)
Every breath from all of my life so far stops, sopping up all the time on my plate.

I see her blink in the backseat
her face reflected to mine and mine back to hers,
the infinite recursion, brooding between us, panics.

Her mouth an “O”,
I find control.
We grin.