A sestina written for my brother, Glenn, who was killed in a plane crash in 1984.

Should it be with regrets that I remember you?
Like a song left unsung, or the setting of the sun?
Was it the love of flying in your plane,
Or the kinship you felt with the wind
That caused you to run away
From all that you knew down that endless runway?

I recall with anger that infinite runway
Whose end you could not see, and soon you
Would be too far to return, like a land-lost castaway.
Then you would rise and soar like a gull, and dance with the sun,
And cast all your woes like chaff to the wind
As its drafts and draws coddled you plane.

And rising above the tiny town of your troubles in your plane
As you sought the end of that endless runway,
The only end you met was your own, for the wind
Died that clear September day, and you,
With the setting of the sun,
Were never to return as you flew away.

I take flights to the past myself as I lie asleep, and come away
With feelings of regret when I awaken. In my mind, my plane
Of memories soars above the sun-
Lit lands of times gone by, but my runway
Is always too short, and I land with sad thoughts of you. But when I do awaken I can still feel the wind.

Yet it is not a gentle wind, but a cold, harsh wind
Which whispers your name, and asks why you went away,
And gives no answer. And is it you
I seem to see, regarding me as you would a plane,
With the scrutiny of a pilot accustomed to a runway
Of a diferent kind, where there's always sun?

So it is that when I watch the setting sun,
Or the march of clouds, or the play of the wind
On the flat bleakness of a runway,
And think of when you flew away
That September day, just you and your plane,
That it is with regrets that I remember you.

Yet I know that the sun sets here to rise elsewhere far away,
And the wind that dies here will soon carry me and my plane
Down that same endless runway, and up, up to you.