High Flight

High Flight 

Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.

Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of 

Wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence.

Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along and

Flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew

And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

                                                                ~John Gillespie Magee

A couple of evenings ago I took this photo of the contrails that seem to mark an X in the sky with the moon nearby.  I thought of this poem that was read  while showing a jet soaring through the sky played at the end of the broadcast when the tv station signed off for the night many years ago.  Do you remember this?

Until next time...