High Flight   by Dru Blair

A lone F-16 drifts upward, leaving in it’s wake, a footprint of swirls to mark its passage through a magnificent ocean of clouds. Inspired by American pilot John Gillespie Magee, Jr.’s poem, written to his parents 2 months before he perished in his Spitfire over Britain. Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward Ive climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hovring there, Ive chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . . Up, up the long, delirious burning blue Ive topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or ever eagle flew — And, while with silent, lifting mind Ive trod The high untresspassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. — John Gillespie Magee, Jr