AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2014 - 22

LICENSE TO LEARN

Aviation poetry

BY ROD MACHADO

Expand your mind

ROD MACHADO

is a CFII and
aviation
motivational
speaker who flies
a Cessna 150 in
California.

22 | AOPA PILOT March 2014

NOVELIST ARNOLD BENNETT ONCE WROTE, "I myself
have seen it empty buildings that had been full; and I
know that it will scatter a crowd more quickly than a
hose-pipe, hornets, or the rumour of plague. Even to
murmur it is to incur solitude, probably disdain, and
possibly starvation, as historical examples show. That
word is poetry."
Is poetry really that bad? Not at all. In fact, good
aviation poetry can help us interpret the more sublime
aspects of our aviation experience.
Poetry is the bridge between literature and music.
It's art. As with all true art, it has the interpretative
power to awaken within us strong emotions. The traditional poet accomplishes this by working within
the constraints of meter and rhyme. He leverages
words and symbolic meaning to shape the contours
of a message that targets both the heart and the head.
Our everyday aviation experience can become richer
and more meaningful when the aviation poet helps us
interpret what we see, what we feel, and what we hear.
Do you remember the last time you looked up to
locate the sound of a lone single-engine airplane in
transit? In that instant, you surrendered yourself to
reverie as you wondered about the person behind
the controls and the destination of the machine. This
is how poet Sarah Churchill (Winston's daughter)
expresses similar emotions in the first 10 lines of a
poem titled, The Bombers.
Whenever I see them ride on high,
Gleaming and proud in the morning sky,
Or lying awake in bed at night,
I hear them pass on their outward flight;
I feel the mass of metal and guns,
Delicate instruments, deadweight tons,
Awkward, slow, bomb racks full,
Straining away from downward pull,
Straining away from home and base,
And try to see the pilot's face...
Sarah speaks of the ease with which we can release
our terrestrial moorings and project our imagination
into the cockpit of a wayward airplane. This poem
reflects the sobering experience of war, but the message is eternal: I wonder what it's like to walk in your
shoes? You can't help but empathize with the young
pilot at the controls of this mighty war machine. You
can almost feel him pulling aft on the yoke to leverage
those wings for their full allotment of lift.

Another one of my favorite poems is titled, A
Tribute to the Forgotten Mechanic. If you read the
entire poem, you'll feel a renewed respect for the person who handles your airplane's pistons and plugs.
Here are a few stanzas of a poem whose author
remains unknown.
...But for each of these flying heroes
there were thousands of little renown,
and these were the men who worked on the planes
but kept their feet on the ground.
We all know the name of Lindbergh,
and we've read of his flight of fame.
But think, if you can, of his maintenance man,
can you remember his name?
And think of our wartime heroes,
Gabreski, Jabara, and Scott.
Can you tell me the names of their crew chief ?
A thousand to one you cannot....
Finally, poems can bring us pleasure by aiding our
memory. Wordsworth wrote that it was his recollection of daffodils that filled his heart with pleasure as
he lie on his couch in a vacant or pensive mood. Patrick
J. Phillips' (flyersprayer.com) wonderful poem, Solo,
helps us remember the thrill of flying an airplane alone
for the very first time. Here are three stanzas from Solo.
The earth rolls by beneath my wings,
My mind dwells not on other things,
For as my nose points towards the sky,
I can't believe I'm going to fly....
Five hundred feet. It's time to turn,
There is still so much I have to learn.
Ease the yoke and now the rudder,
The trick is not to make her shudder.
Thump! I'm down! It feels so good,
Nothing to it, I knew I could.
Take heart my friend and have a try,
For now I know that I can fly.
While aviation poetry serves us on many levels, we
seldom read it for its factual content. We read it to see
what the poet sees, to know what the poet knows. We
read it to remember why some things are important.
This is how poetry expands our minds and makes our
aviation experience richer and more fulfilling.
So, stretch your dome,
By reading a poem.
AOPA
WEB

www.rodmachado.com

http://www.flyersprayer.com http://www.rodmachado.com

AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2014

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