I guess this plane is going down the hard way.
It’s funny (in its way) — I thought I’d be falling
into hysterics at the end. Instead I’m startlingly
at peace, an armistice I must have agreed to
or don’t feel like fighting against.
Grandpa was half my age when his plane
went down over a Germany taken over
by hysterics and a mad man. Imagine —
18 years old and a prisoner for 9 months.
He said he was reborn over there —
Jesus himself had delivered him
from angry mobs (recently bombed Christians
throwing rocks) Into the less murderous hands
of soldiers with swastikas and rifles.
He was blessed, he said, saved; and my Dad
came 8 years later, a blessing certainly
to my plans for birth. Am I doubly blessed then?
Or triple? The math of existence is beyond me.
Grandpa came back without his teeth
but always wore a smile. In that damn box
his smile was gone, along with his color.
His was the first dead body I ever saw. I wonder
how many people he killed? He never said
and I never asked. He lived 74 years and every day
after he got home was a blessing.
He never got on another damn airplane.
And this plane? Encountered some turbulence but
I’ll live to squander another day, cynically
smiling with incredulity as my peace is broken
by another savory rain that refuses to appreciate
the saccharine blessings flying in the face of history.
Phillip Knight Scott | © 2019
Submitted to the dVerse Poets Pub.
I joke a lot, but my Grandfather really was a hero. I am grateful to have inherited his middle name, if nothing else.
