Columbiad

3.

You fell from space, a tragic white bird,

falling, still falling, never touching down.

You plummeted down the clear blue morning,

a mournful meteor in perpetual plunge --

impossibly, like a dream,

forever falling toward unreachable earth,

never to arrive on the ground.

2.

The aching, desolate runway

lies forlorn beneath the firmament

in which you disappeared.

That morning she waited in vain

for a ghost homecoming,

for a ship mysteriously lost

somewhere in the sky.

1.

As your ashes rained that somber morning,

a solemn white bird lit on the dewy lawn.

It stood still and silent like a ghost

arrived from the mourning heavens,

its landing wistful yet triumphant.

It gazed upon us for a dreamlike moment,

then took flight and was gone.

Steven Holland

February 2003