While I was on my trip to England, I wrote a few poems, which I will post in sequence. We were there from the end of April through mid May, and flew there and back. Even though we upgraded our seats from coach, sleeping was no easy feat. And so, I found myself awake at 2:30 in the morning, high in the air over the ocean, heading East. I have never seen such a canopy of stars. Nor have I ever seen them disappear, in so spectacular a celestial performance.
Up ahead there is the dawn–
The one you set your compass on–
And all around, a velvet sky,
Beset with pinpricked jewel eyes.
Up ahead there is the dawn,
As West to East we traverse on
A tube of steel and seating foam,
With naught to rest our heads upon.
Up ahead there is the dawn,
All bluish-silver, wider grown,
Until it hazes, growing grand,
As we approach Tomorrowland.
Up ahead there is the dawn–
Event, to set your clocks upon.
Our watches show but half-past two.
More aged ever, cousins, you.
Up ahead there is the dawn,
A striped ribbon on the foam,
Now dazzling peach and pink and gold:
Your welcome banner you unfold.
Up ahead there is the dawn.
And soon, we’ll set our feet upon
The shores we could not get away
From fast enough, one by-gone day.
All slights forgotten in the gray,
We greet Today from Yesterday.
Copyright 2023 Andrea LeDew
For a poem hoping for a new dawn for unknown writers, read The Dawn. For a lament on man’s inability to comprehend why God lets bad things happen, read And Back Again.
Kitchen Care
I love your Tomorrowland—it reminds me poetically of the many wonderful sunset-to-sunrise flights I spent glued to an airplane window. (A window seat is really wasted on people who immediately pull the shade down to look at a screen.) So glad your England trip was also poetically fruitful.
Thank you Margrit. The window seat is the seat for me, too! It was better than the movies on offer on that trip!