Flying Fortresses
FLYING with Americans in their B Seventeen,
Weapon-bright ship of the new world, the steady
Majestic job, I saw my England green,
Rutted, furrowed and smudged already
With history and war and the loved scene.
There below, framed in the bombardier’s panel,
Was harvest stooked, or the eighteenth-century plan
Of ancestors, or pitheads, or a glint of the Channel,
Or plush-bricked manufacturing town. A man
In American kit beside me, all that crew’
Positive all, teamed-up in their B Seventeen
Out of the scalding west of America, anew
Brought, quick and keen, rare passion to the view.
Weapon-bright ship of the new world, the steady
Majestic job, I saw my England green,
Rutted, furrowed and smudged already
With history and war and the loved scene.
There below, framed in the bombardier’s panel,
Was harvest stooked, or the eighteenth-century plan
Of ancestors, or pitheads, or a glint of the Channel,
Or plush-bricked manufacturing town. A man
In American kit beside me, all that crew’
Positive all, teamed-up in their B Seventeen
Out of the scalding west of America, anew
Brought, quick and keen, rare passion to the view.