A Poem for Antoine De Saint –Exupery

I wish I could have kept you company

on those flights over the sand
We could have counted stars
and read each other the love letters
it was our duty to deliver.

In the heat of the day, we’d share our single ration of water
and speak sweetly to each other
From dry throats and cracking lips
I’d lean in close and say
“tell me a story about this life.”

“There was a boy age near eight

with hair like bright colored wheat
He was what was right and what was real
how we were before we began to feel
the weight we had to forget, the fear, defeat.”

And you would continue until my eyes were closed

and the sky had turned to plum
The dark would hum and hold me soft
when my wakened mind would have worried
our tiny plane might twirl.

Maybe had I been there asleep

in front of the co-pilot controls
I could have saved you from disaster—
the one that brought you to the dust
and shattered the dials and sparked spat oil.

Maybe the pieces of your plane would have

rejoined in backwards burst
Sealed at the cracking seams
and bounded from the ground
tailing towards the wind and clouds.