Final Approach

A poem to/for my aviation colleagues.

Author Photo from The Sky Behind Me, a Memoir of Flying and Life ©2012*

It was so good to be

So good at it. Sky

Offers no regret,

Nor judgment well or ill

From denting hail,

From raucous rain,

From withering wind.

Nothing marks its yawning blue so much as

Epic indifference. Sky cares not a gust

for status, cash balance, posts, clicks,

Friends real or imagined, nor

Enemies loathed.

Why,

Groundlings may ask? Why such deep

Dedication? Why undying devotion to

Sky’s indifference, horizoned yawn, bare

Tolerance of our Icarian rise?

It’s in the knowing:

Wind blows…

Storms gather…

Ice is…

Headwinds are…

Tailwinds, too…

Fog forms…

Hard truth is in etheric cloud.

Then this:

Pay well and wisely tribute owed the god

Of lift, drag, yaw, thrust that

Despot birds knew of long past,

Or pay in less than healthy ways.

Sky notes not our well-

Finessed finals,

Kissed-on landings,

Taxi skill,

Radio rasp. Sky

Cares not for strip-ed sleeves,

Epaulets of gold, the

True and real Rolex.

Sky cares not a jot for

Seat backs up and stowed,

Belts secure,

Weathered pilot nod to

Old and bold. Sky notes not

Our lengthy logs, high numbered,

pages, sacred vow to keep

Takeoffs and landings equal.

Sky heeds not regret, nor

Sorrow, nor mewling, nor

Pathetic, dirt-bound elegy. Save it

For one’s looming — long horizontal, the farm’s

Purchase and its

Long-fueled duration. For

Timeless time spent

Looking up at roots, sooner

If sky above’s not heeded and obeyed.

*The Sky Behind me, a Memoir of Flying and life ©2012 Byron Edgington