Night Flight

by tfawcus

Two-thirds the speed of sound and six miles high
and yet it seems we're stationary in flight,
as slow we gallop through the darkling sky,
our hooves on cobblestones this turbid night.

Soft traceries of orange faintly glow,
suggesting warmth and shelter found within,
like tatters of mantilla lace that flow
to veil protruding bones and lambent skin.

Dark spectres hide the Zamboangan coast;
a puppet show of broken clouds that drift
across the basalt sea, each small grey ghost
deceiving those who take the graveyard shift.

And, poised on high, a hemisphere recedes,
a tilted bowl of rice for starving men,
whose polished grains of fractured moonlight feed
such minds as seek the nourishment of Zen.

Her twin becomes a silver boat confined
upon our wing, a crescent blur in form.
It holds its pace with us, as though inclined
to steal a ride towards the nascent dawn.

Illumination spreads across the land,
a phosphorescent manna for mankind,
a speckled shoal of fish, a sleight of hand,
that tempts a fishing fleet to drop behind.

I idly watch them slide, in retrograde,
as though impelled towards a vortex, deep
beneath the sea, where fabled mermaids played
sweet songs to lull such fishermen to sleep.

Our unrelenting tumult, in full swing,
impels us south to greet our manatees.
Meanwhile the mirrored moon drifts down our wing
and sails into the burnished, metal seas.

As our diurnal sphere shakes off the night,
impatiently new horses start to neigh.
Apollo's coach will soon begin its flight,
to shine a searing light on this new day.

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Poem of the Month contest entry

Recognized

There is a veiled connection here between those mermaids of mythical beauty who entice sailors to their doom, and the manatees in home waters who, for all their comparative plainness, have the advantage of being real. It is said that the legends of mermaids were based on early sightings of the manatee by homesick and presumably rather short-sighted sailors. Make of it what you will!

Note; In British English 'basalt' is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable, unlike the American English pronunciation.

Image by permission of Eric Teske (CC BY-NC 3.0), see http://www.ericteske.com

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Mainly iambic pentameter - abab quatrains

Night Flight

by tfawcus

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