Reaching Out My Hand...

Since I've been contemplating the ideas of flight, freedom, and release I thought I'd post one of my favorite poems written by a pilot. I cherish the final line. I hope it lifts your spirit as it did mine. This is by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. a British pilot who wrote this during the Battle of Britain. 3 months after writing this he would die in his Spitfire in the very skies he speaks of. He was 19.

High Flight

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.
Hov'ring there,I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind
I've trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.