A DREAM OF AEROPLANES 2000
FLYPAST AT OLD WARDEN
Even now, here, this past
before my past leaks down
the long conduits, the time-
channels, weed-locked with
my own memories. Back then,
on corner bombsite, in the
air-raid shelter under the apple trees,
that past before our past
bellied up, breathed in our faces.
Churchill, Hitler, Uncle Joe bowled
down cinema aisles and into
our infant dreams. Parents' stories,
shed headlines from old newspapers
feeding the living-room fire, comics
swapped in playground corners, Belsen
photoes, shifted sideways through
a conspiracy of desks - war-echoes
blew like late rumours from a world
still turning out of darkness. Our legacy
was smoke from fires still burning.
And now, trailing tails of smoke,
red, white and blue, the parachutists turn
and turn in a blank sky. The last Lancaster,
Spitfire, Hurricane tug their trinity
of shadows over the aerodrome, over
the lifted faces of the crowd, across
the eyes of old saluting men,
remembering. Their past before
my past speaks in the beating
engines, the ghost-passage of three
black crosses over September fields,
heading east to the world's edge.
Old Warden aerodrome in Bedfordshire hosts 'flying days' of vintage aircarft.
Sometimes the 'Battle of Britain' flight - a Spitfire, a Hurricane & a Lancaster -
are featured.
pic of unknown origin.
10:40:19 PM 
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