Remembrances
…looked over the cool fresh lights flashing
out to the blackness,
smelt the new steel, felt its cool tinge
the reflection on the glass, tainted with faint stars
far away.
Knew the raw power driving asunder
hearing the growling purr – remembering other times,
that it did not drive so regular,
times when the pounding was louder
coming from the hull, and not the engine rooms.
Remembering how men bouncing like stuffed puppets
comically reached out to change to change switches,
with flashes of fire bursting from guns in a macabre dance of machinery
at war.
Or when sudden outbursts would wreak through the ship
and her groans would echo, close and far away,
and lights would dim, but her crew would carry on in spite
perhaps not even noticing.
Facing death with placid calmness – and even winning.
And then there was the Captain.
He stood rigidly still and strong – calmly
as sparks flew across the bridge,
and fighters screamed inches away from the windscreen,
fixed perpendicular to the horizon he stood, even as she swung
furiously from
direct hits,
and even collisions.
For he trusted his ship, and his crew – just as they, him,
for he had led them into battle before, and was their hero’s figure,
not strong or large of stature, but calm, peaceful, the intellectual
learnid.