The day after tomorrow we leave for Thailand, so I am thinking about flying. I wonder how much the experience has changed since Marion Strobel wrote this verse in her poem, Bon Voyage, in 1942,

'Or board a plane: the chairs adjustable,

Oxygen tubes, safety belts for the climb.

Fly over the world, see your country unroll

Like a map, save - if you desire to - Time.
Look back on the sunset your flying from:

Breakfast is free and there's plenty of gum.'

Or this from John Magee's High Flight, 

'Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth,

And danced the skies on laughter-silver wings;

Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds, - and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of'

Or perhaps this fragment from Amelia Earhart's From an Airplane, 1921

'Even the watchful, purple hills

That hold the lake,

could not see so well as I

the stain of evening

creeping from its heart;

nor the round, yellow eyes of the hamlet

growing filmy with mists.'

And finally from An Airman's Grace, by Father John MacGillivray

'Lord of the thunderhead and sky

You placed in us the will to fly

You taught our hand speed, skill and grace,

To soar beyond our dwelling place.'

There seem to be quite a few poems written about flying. The experience of being in a small open-cockpit machine in the early days differs markedly from that of the modern traveller in a fat, climate controlled 747. It was a lot more dangerous then too - Earhart and Magee both lost their lives flying and many others have to boot. I don't recall writing any poems about being a passenger in a modern plane so I might give it a whirl if the spirit takes me. I prefer to stay on the ground but, by the Grace of God, I pray we will be speeded safely to and from our destination.