by Lauren E. Jadot
This is the end.
This is the end.
This is the end.
There’s nothing, nobody left here.
Everything we had known and held dear.
They came at nighttime, while we slept
Soon, our history would be over swept.
This is the end.
This is the end.
This is the end.
My sweet mother tongue, once spoken with grace,
Was shoved to the ground and looked at with distaste.
And Mother Nature, when she woke at dusk,
She couldn’t have known of what was to come.
This is the end.
This is the end.
This is the end.
The old ways are dying, so few of them remain.
I have nothing to gain.
Nothing. No stories, legends, or tales of wonder
Instead, all I have inherited is pain and somber.
This is the end.
This is the end.
This is the end.
My Poem:
Reflection:
High Flight- John Gillespie Magee Jr.
The sonnet High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, Jr was written on August 18, 1941 only a few months before his death. Magee’s poem celebrates the act of flight as a means of “slipping the surly bonds of Earth.” He wrote this poem after his first flight to 33,000 feet in a Spitfire while he was in the Royal Canadian Air Force as a fighter pilot, as an attempt to describe his view of the flight and the emotions that came with it. Reading this poem is exciting and invigorating. It’s as if I can feel the wind, see the clouds, and enjoy the time along with Magee. His use of sound is fantastic. He contrasts the silence with loudness as a way to bring out our emotions and help us imagine exactly what it is like to sit in that plane. If a poet can use all our senses, you know it is a good poem. I can definitely see why this poem is a favorite among pilots and astronauts. In the final lines of the poem, we almost leave the natural behind for the supernatural, as space is described as having a “sanctity”’ to it, while Magee feels as though he can put his hand out and “touch the face of God.” High Flight still sparks emotions in future aviators and pilots as they each interpret this poem and bring the poem beyond the human imagination’s highest heights.