Poem
from Life After Mississippi
Why
Men Fly
We
sat around waiting
to see who had lit up the desert,
each of us with somebody
we did not want it to be,
burning out there,
coyotes and pack rats,
bright-eyed by the fire,
running jumping onto and around
rags of hot metal
scattered a mile,
nibbling perhaps at the odd chunks of meat.
All
of us wondered the same thing
as each number landed,
Apache four two is in
Apache one eight is in
as each head-shaking, wet-suited man
came in counting the chairs,
checking each face for the missing one.
We
did not know that melodrama
worked against us
until a cajun boy hit his fist
on the table and sobbed,
"Why didn't they get out?"
And
one of the instructors
hand-picked a bunch of us into another room
and said
"Anybody who can't take this without crying
better quit now."
Then as we tried variations on stony faced,
he said,
"After all, if flying were safe,
why the hell do it?"
-
James A. Autry, Life After Mississippi.
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