Calligraphy

Contrails,
Silvered by the edging sun -
The brushwork of pilots
On the aching blue.

17 February 2008

A friend recently said that this reminded them of the poem, "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, which I certainly knew, so maybe I was subconsciously using it. I particularly remember it, because it was quoted in a film about the Challenger disaster (and President Reagan also quoted part of it in his speech after the disaster). Interestingly enough, if you look it up in Wikipedia, there is a section about how Magee was clearly influenced by other poems when he wrote it, so I don't feel quite as bad!

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve 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. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark nor even eagle flew—

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.