.
Flying Home
Alas, I missed
My flight back Home,
After all these years
In life I’ve roamed.
I had then raced
To make my flight,
I thought I had
My timing right.
But there before
My startled eyes
The clouds rolled in
And filled the skies!
The plane stood still
On tarmac flat,
As rain poured down—
Imagine that!
I bowed my head—
Resigned to stay,
In this cold world
Another day.
When clouds do lift,
When sun does rise,
I’ll finally fly
Back to that prize.
That prize of Home,
The place I need,
To rest my soul,
My soul then freed.
.
.
Michael Charles Maibach began writing poems at age nine. Since then he has continued writing poems, and sharing them with friends. His career has involved global business diplomacy. He is a native of Peoria, Illinois. Today Michael resides in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. More of his poems are found at www.MaibachPoems.us or on Facebook.
No place like home, Michael, to restore the soul! Thanks.
Thank you James.
Beautiful sentiments: that I interpret as :
even the politically powerful and influential
must acquiesce to higher deities who keep their checks and balances by using everyday matters, e.g. the weather, and man’s judgment of how it will pan out.
Thank you James and Damian. I had in mind here going from this imperfect world to what we Christians call the Heaven of our Creator. Michael
Yes, I saw that – a lovely thought.
Thank you, Michael.
Michael does something interesting in his fourth quatrain, the smack-dab middle of the poem. He gives us the image of an airplane grounded on the tarmac because of heavy rain, and so the reader assumes that it is all about a simple, mundane flight delay. But in the very next quatrain he mentions that the flight is to take the speaker out of “this cold world.” Suddenly the poem takes on a mood of mortality and unfulfilled longing.
Exactly Joseph! Thank you. Michael
Thank you, Michael. I just recently read John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Your poem makes me wonder how Bunyan might have written his allegory differently had he lived in the Age of Flight.
Your allegory, for all its brevity, has some delightful twists – at first I thought this soul was missing his one chance to fly to Heaven due to his own miscalculation (like the five foolish virgins with no oil in their lamps), but it soon becomes clear that it is heavenly forces that are staying the flight, not the soul’s faults – and, most importantly, the flight is merely delayed indefinitely, not canceled. The allegory seems to me to be of a near-death experience.
Thank you Jack. The old man thought his work was finally done, that it was his time – finally – to return to his Crestor. But that Creator wanted more from him before leaving.