Al,
How about
Men for All Seasons
Fickle as a young girl’s heart,
Weather played a vital part.
Forecast winds could change and veer
A navigator’s constant fear.
In spite of every new device
All crews feared the demon ice.
Downstairs, if shrouding fog came down
Ops are cancelled, off to town!”
Remember, too, those luckless types,
The ground crews who, despite their gripes
Worked through winters foul and grim
To keep their precious Lance in trim.
But there were times of awed surprise
As towering cloudscapes filled the skies;
And sunsets when the climbing kite
Glowed crimson in the fading light.
Or
Supreme and proud
We had no common bond
Save that of youth.
No shared ambition,
Except to venture and survive.
Until, aloft within that roaring fuselage,
Each dependent on the others,
We found in war’s intensity
Good cause to say with pride in later years,
To those who chronicled the great events
We flew in Lancasters
Or
Furrows into Silence
The Lancs have left; from Fenland skies
The clamour and the fret has gone.
Their crews and those who watched with anxious eyes
For homing kites are long departed.
Through roofless huts and fissured tarmac grow
The thrusting weeds
And there is little left to show
What once was here.
Nor should we grieve, or yearn
For what is past.
This place, designed for war, has served its turn
Let Nature now take back its own.
The ravages of age and time can not decay
The greater work.
These artefacts of steel and concrete pass away;
The deeds remain.
Or
Air Gunners
Alone in his transparent shell,
A speck in space,
He sits, poised in his airy kingdom;
At his back the unknown,
Before him the unfolding map
Of his journey.
Guardian of seven lives,
Taut with the concentration of survival,
He swings his turret through vigilant arcs,
Eyes straining for the fighters,
Braced for the violence of surprise.
All by Philip A. Nicholson