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 windswept height with
easy grace where never lark, or 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
John Gillespie Magee Jr. , A young American, flew with the Royal Canadian Air Force in England early in WWII, and was killed shortly after he composed this poem.
Clouds are a part of living
and if you fly, a big part of staying alive
I remember an airport and the sky closing behind me
a brand new pilot’s license and no instrument time
a terrible, deadly, damn fool policy
I hope they’ve changed it
I had a few lessons from my brother
he told me about believing the instruments
Of course I didn’t really, actually, believe them
but I did follow the one that said “we’re right side up”
When my inner ear said; “you’re not,” “turn,” “turn or die”
And I throttled back and let the plane sink into the dark
we might land or hit something at less than full speed
and then there was a little space and a little light
and a landmark, and the lost ground was found
And the time flying from Calgary to Salt Lake
with two cloud layers twenty feet apart
and the big twin flying V.F.R. between
and the feeling in my heart
But the best is a grey cloudy day
when the whole world is too sad to play
and old mother nature seems to wring out her mop
and you have a little courage and you know
That there’s no place like the light
when you break out on top
Heading west for stampede city
doing two miles a minute through air
with a Chinook pouring over the mountains
and a rising feeling that you’ll never get there
You’re going slower and slower
over the rough wind swept ground
and you don’t want to land in that field
and of course, you don’t dare turn around
The needle and your knees
are all three on empty, knocking
and if you had a car, you’d pull over
get out the old can, and start walking
But you’ve made it, you land, and you park
and you know there’s someone you’ve got to thank
when the boys put thirty two gallons
in your thirty two gallon tank
Eight triple one Gulf, this is seventy eight Tango Sierra
how would you like to drop in to Grand Canyon airport?
We were flying Calgary-Phoenix; he, Phoenix-Sun Valley
a friend had just lost an engine. He needed to land
and wanted a ride to Phoenix.
I didn’t know the runway but I followed him in
It’s not a very long runway, and at the end
are some pretty big trees.
I was low and slow in the old Twin Commander
the one with the geared engines
The ones you always had to handle oh so gentle
like your throttles were a handful of eggs
So I played the game and brought in the power easy
Too slow and you eat the trees
too fast and you eat the pistons, and the trees
And it was a mighty pretty runway
when you were standing on the ground
On the way back from Phoenix
It was late afternoon and we were lured
by the siren beauty of the Grand Canyon.
Right turn diversion, West to East as slow as we could go
Just below the rim the whole length of it
watching the magic colors as the sun
behind us lit up the canyon walls
Almost out of fuel we finally pulled ourselves away and
turned north to find a runway.
The wind was from the west and we had to land into the
blinding light of the sun just before it went down.
It was as if it had turned on us, this light that had made us
feel so alive, (although we had really turned on it) and was
about to kill us now because we didn’t have enough fuel to
go around and we had to face it
straight on.
With two pilot passengers looking out the side windows and
calling out heights and directions, and a little luck we got
down. And we felt good again, very good.
Always the turnings, always the changing, always the other
side of the coin. So many times in that part
of my life it seemed that the beauty and the
pleasure were but a thin membrane away
from the fear and the danger.
