Flight 1015 [Poem]
Title: New fears #5
Creator: Cerrito, Chandra, artist
Date Created/Published: 2001 Dec.
Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication. For information, see Exit Art's "Reactions" Exhibition Collection,(http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/356_exit.html)
Image Source: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002710536/
Their words to one another were like turbulence
Wing to wing their gusts fought,
As their steel-clad bird shaked toward the earth,
Wing to wing ears popped,
Heartbeats soared and stomachs knot,
Wing to wing the flight dropped.
I, their common passenger, prayed
But God's answer came late,
Wing to wing all hearts stopped.
Miracle done and redone,
Shard to shard, their plane destroyed was yet whole,
And I, dead in the never-ending abyss, lived on mysteriously,
Shard to shard shakily with a woman immersed in sun,
With swoopy teddy bear bangs, and acorn eyes,
Shard to shard, she swaddled me with love,
Took my split left hand and made it one
With hers out of the rubble and the ashes,
Shard to shard, scrap by scrap,
Dust unto dust passes.
Afterword:
This is a poem about my parents’ divorce. The title “Flight 1015” refers to their wedding anniversary on October 15th and in the poem their love is metaphorically described as both the turbulence and the airplane itself. The poem is also a modern dialogue with Robert Frost’s famous poem about marriage entitled “The Master Speed.” Every instance of “wing to wing” in my poem is an allusion back to Frost’s masterpiece. In Frost’s poem, he beautifully describes marriage as being “wing to wing,” organically like a bird, to show the new unity of the couple’s life together and to remind them that if they are going to have “speed” (read: success and joy), then it will only be united “wing to wing and oar to oar.” Well, what happens if the marriage becomes turbulent or ends in divorce? What happens to their wings? And what happens to children who are the fruit of that “flight”? In my poem, I try to answer these questions and to depict the tragedy of divorce when a couple is truly bound “wing to wing” as well as the hope and redemption that can be on the other side for the children. Now with these generalities in mind, I hope you enjoy the poem and I pray that it brings some comfort and healing to those children of divorce affected so much by the loss of marriage being "wing to wing, oar to oar."
Intercessory Prayer
St. Nicholas of Myra, patron of children, pray for us.
About the author:
Dan Meola is the co-founder and president of Life-Giving Wounds. His full bio can be read here.
Reflection Questions for Small Groups or Individuals
How did this poem make you feel?
What, from your own life and experience, came to mind?
What lines stood out to you the most? Why might they have resonated with you?