High Flight

After spending all day making funeral arrangements with the family, I came home, changed my clothes, and went for a 3 mile run. My Achilles area was swollen some but no pain, and usually running helps reduce the swelling a bit. Running has always had a useful side affect of stress reduction, something I sorely need from the workplace and life at times.

It was good to clear my head and think of little else other than breathing and where my next step would be placed. I did catch myself thinking - why am I not thinking about recent events - only to find myself back in my mindless rhythm:

breathe...step...step...breathe

breathe...step...step...breathe

I need to sleep and dream of flying.

*******

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

    Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941