HOVERING - Poem

 

HOVERING

(For Michael Bucove)


Tonight, I stared into the fading southern sky
Because they say if you time it right
you can see a pilot’s soul make its final flight,
But all I saw were the billowing clouds.

I wasn’t surprised, you were never one
To grandly arc across the sky in a giant burn
As if you were marking your presence
In indelible ink in the eternal jet stream.

No, I always remember you hovering,
Like the time we were careening
Well above the Chickamin River and
You suddenly stopped, to watch salmon.

Or that time hovering near Quartz Hill camp
When silence suddenly enveloped us
And you auto-rotated in as smoothly
As if you had meant to all along.

Or even how lightly you could swing
The massive propane tanks over our heads
On the icy, narrow mountain tops
Where we worked, inches from disaster.

Some pilots fly like they are wrestling
An unseen beast in the clouds,
But you always gentled the sky
Like a lover you would hold forever.

And that’s what I will chose to remember,
That gentle smile come to fetch us
From whatever adventure we were on,
That gentle smile come to take us home.

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