I mentioned in the last post that this is Imbolc. I forgot to say that this festival also celebrates the goddess Brigid, who among other things is associated with poetry. Because of that, today is the Second Annual Brigid in Cyberspace Silent Poetry Reading, which you can read about here. Here’s the poem I picked, one that has stayed with me since I first read it in college and one that I think of whenever I fly somewhere.

“High Flight”

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

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