A poem for Karen B. Nelson’s Reason2Rhyme Monday poetry confab. I refuse to say “I’m not a poet…” Instead I’ll just say, It’s fun trying this out but I won’t quit my night job. We’re challenged this week to compare today July 2nd, 2012 to the same day some year in the past. I chose july 2nd, 1937 for Amelia and Fred. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6d2RG2Rl64 They’re still out there and we’ll be joinging them sooner or later. Happy landings. Aloha, D.
Flying with Amelia
Two July
Nineteen-Thirty-seven
The day Amelia last challenged the sky
Half the year history
Half yet ahead
A hope
Two July
Today
Though seventy-five years have passed
Nothing has changed
As we fly with Amelia
Behind us a storied past
Ahead
The future
Obscured
ironwoodwind 
I think a very nice piece of work. I like your choice of history, I like the simple way you dramatized it, and I like the way (or better yet, disliked the way) I felt at the end with the words “future obscured” juxtaposed to the ending words of the first stanza of “hope” – knowing then there was none as she was not found – and worried that our future will disappear as she did. I still feel upset. 😉 Thanks, Randy
Dear Randy,
Thank you for commenting in such a detailed and discerning way on Flying with Amelia. We’re all flying with her; most don’t know it. Fraught with peril and bright with promise, the journey is the thing.
Aloha,
Doug
up late? Night flying?
Hi Randy,
This will explain it, but, yes, night flying.
https://ironwoodwind.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/just-another-night-at-the-office/
Aloha,
D.
Wow…Thanks. I guess you’re really night eyeing (not flying – or, maybe, eye flying). It’s beautiful. It is grand.
I also related so much to your words…
“In the deepest night I talk to my father who is two years dead but by no means gone. I talk to his new companions, the ancients who have gone before and who still listen if you but speak. I talk to myself and imagine beauty and I think of Haiku. Life is grand and the view grander.”
My father passed about 1½ years ago and I talk to him too … and the ancients as well… Randy
I love the picture of Amelia “challenging the sky”. Just beautiful! I’m also impressed at your marking the halfway point of the year this way. Makes me wonder how Amelia felt about it all, in those moments when she knew her journey had taken her on an unexpected course. (A story that has always fascinated me – thanks for choosing it!)
Terrific job, as always Doug. Mahalo!
Karen
P.S. I fixed the link system (old code in new post) and added your link. Thanks for the heads-up!
Dear Karen,
Thanks for commenting so positively about my efforts in Reason2Rhyme this week. Have you figured out that I’m hooked?
Amelia, like all good pilots, was probably ‘working the problem’ right until the end. She lives on in all of us.
Aloha,
Doug
Probably the best capturing of the sentiments about Amelia. I’ve researched and written dry history about that flight, but you made it exactly what it should be–ephemeral and enigmatic, exactly as she was. Thanks, Maggie
Dear Maggie,
Thanks for your observations re Flying with Amelia. I appreciate your reading it. (And your kind comments all the more:)
Aloha,
Doug
Very well done
Thanks!
Aloha,
Doug
Dearest D,
Your words speak of history, and of its importance to our present. To me, the poem paints a picture of embracing courage and accepting challenges (much as you did with this poem challenge). Loving it (but you knew already!)
Love,
Cae
Dear Cae,
Pleasure talking to you this morning/evening. Happy Birthday! (soon come, as Bob Marley would say.) And thank you for commenting on Flying with Amelia. You and she are cut from the same cloth.
Aloha,
Doug
I followed the breadcrumbs back! Not only did I enjoy the poem, it reminded me of a book I’d read recently called Flying Blind, one of the Nathan Heller series by Max Allan Collins. It’s a fictional account of Amelia and Fred’s flight that mixed a great deal of fact in with the highly speculative detective story. This was a wonderful reminder of how it felt to get to ‘know’ Amelia and Fred and all the others surrounding that last flight.
Dear Kathy,
You’re good, you know that?
Thanks for reading Flying with Amelia and for commenting. I appreciate the information about Flying Blind and will find the book soon. Amelia Earhart’s life and story are one for the ages and I look forward to reading more about her.
Aloha,
Doug