First the mood hesitates,pistons
Labor at mass, there is the moment of doubt.
Then suddenly, madly, the jazzy trance of propellers
Fills the enormous room of air—and off!
The clouds, as if in seance, lift upon
The dervish magic-lanterned in the sun.
Now poised on savage metal with such power
That terror is a queen by self-delight,
Grace, calm, and majesty attend
The tons and tremors of her perfect weight.
On the parabolas of rolling air
She mounts the thunder like a moving stair.
This is our simplest practice: her intricate parts
Involved on sun-line, compass, radio, and star,
Tracked on the trackless wind to the precise
Coordinates of space arranged below:
Town X, the summer sleeping on the night
Across the mills and hills and out of sight.
Mission accomplished, interception effected, target
But the targets are all toward the future,
The moment of pause, of poise, where, stitched
Interminably on the foiled and fluttering air
Our years scream down like bombs to resurrection,
Or shatter, or fall wide, or pass conjecture.
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