From Prairies to Planes ...

The first four years of my life were spent on the edge of a tallgrass prairie in Texas. In winter the land looked like fallow pastures. In spring it came alive with a profusion of wildflowers, indiangrass and gammagrass.

I struggled to keep up as my brother's bare feet ran lightly across bluebells and prairie celestials ... Sometimes a droning sound caused the leader of our childish games to stop and lift his face to the sky. Shading his eyes against the sun's glare, he carefully studied the shape and movement of a far-away plane.

Even after it disappeared from view, he continued to search the heavens. Maybe it would come back ...

How could a seven-year-old boy, living an isolated life on the prairie, know anything about airplanes in the year 1940? He couldn't know. Yet, he did ... He did.

Years later, my brother was flying low over the land of his beginning ... remembering the small boy who once ran barefoot through the bluestems and switchgrass below, when he wrote the following words:
 

Wings of Time

Blond hair blowing, you narrowed your eyes

  and lifted your face to the sky,  

 holding your breath as splashes of sun

    touched a dark silhouette so high.

You heard the purr of an engine;
saw visions of things yet to be ...

                                "I'll be there someday!"
                                 you called to the wind,
                         "Those wings are waiting for me."

Today, I crossed over that meadow

                        where you stood on a childhood day.
                                      I saw golden curls ...
                                      an up-turned face,
                                and almost, I heard you say ...

"Those wings are for me. I'll be there someday."

I pushed the throttles forward

                             and heard the turbines whine,
                             as a vast array of instruments
                                 called me back from time.

Through the window I saw a shadow

                           of life racing past you out there,
                        and I watched the fast-fading picture
                            of a boy with gold-tousled hair.

Suddenly, the whine grew quieter,

                              cruising the clear calm blue ...
                        I kept my promise. You're here today.
                        On wings that were destined for you.

You had a dream. I made it come true.

                            We carved our space in the sky,
                               but what happened to time?
                                          It went so fast.

We spent it ... You and I.

Written by Ken Pearsonr

 

 

 

emal:  MelindaGerner@yahoo.com