On the tallest day in time the dead came back.
Clouds met us in the pastures past a world.
By short wave the releases of a rack
Exploded on the interphone’s new word.
Halfway past Iwo we jettisoned to sea
Our gift of bombs like tears and tears like bombs
To spring a frolic fountain daintily
Out of the blue metallic seas of doom.
No fire-shot cloud pursued us going home.
No cities cringed and wallowed in the flame.
Far out to sea a blank millennium
Changed us alive, and left us still the same.
Lightened, we banked like jays, antennae squawking.
The four wild metal halos of our props
Blurred into time. The interphone was talking
Abracadabra to the cumulus tops:
Dreamboat three-one to Yearsend-loud and clear,
Angels one-two on course at one-six-nine.
Magellan to Balboa. Propwash to Century.
How do you read me? Bombay to Valentine.
Fading and out. And all the dead were homing.
(Wisecrack to Halfmast. Doom to Memory.)
On the tallest day in time we saw them coming,
Wheels jammed and flaming on a metal sea.
(John Anthony Ciardi)
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Based on Topics: World Poems, Time Poems, Home Poems, Past Poems, Angels Poems, Memory Poems, Romantic Love PoemsBased on Keywords: antennae, magellan, halos, releases, cumulus, cringed, balboa, squawking, jettisoned, abracadabra, one-two