Flying with the Gods
The litany of timely checklists done,
I throttle up and start the take-off run.
Be mindful now, here comes the magic part
This flying thing’s half science and half art.
What motivates the flyer to the sky?
You need to ask? You’ll never get the ‘why’.
An intuition, or your DNA
There is no choice, you’re simply built that way
No flight from worldly problems, this
Nor “soaring free” above some “great abyss”
It’s more a pilgrim’s journey, more a quest
A visit to the place I love the best
A place where no two sorties are the same
Where hazards lie in wait and must be tamed
Where beauty co-exists with heartless fate
Where arrogance repents, but it’s too late
We bargain with the Gods each time we go
Our knowledge, method, practise make it so
If we abide by what they deem is right
They’ll ride with us on every single flight
And now we climb away, adventure-bound
Alive, alert, attuned to every sound
What vistas wait, how is the sky today?
We watch, we scan, we look along our way
Today the sun is veiled behind a screen
Its rheumy eye surveys a silvered scene
A narrow blue horizon peeps below
A faint reflection sets the sea aglow
And here I sit, still mindfully aware
By privilege, not right, that I am there
And knowing too that when I fly next time
A whole new deal will yield a different rhyme.
