It's been ten years since this flight perished from our skies one cold halloween night.
Halloween night of nineteen ninety-four
there came the heralding of a metallic angel
Trumpets sounded in one shattering breath
as a light flew from heaven at vertical angle.
Sixty-eight angels ascended that cold night
from a plowed, rural field in Roselawn.
Just brief moments of being 9,000 feet in flight
the metallic angel was suddenly silenced and gone.
Lights flashed continuously, begging ghosts not to leave
Rescuers, volunteers, onlookers flooded the site.
Tears for friends, tears for strangers who were left to grieve
Tears for those who were lost in the midst of flight.
American Airlines Flight 4184 bowed with ice on her wings.
God touched her and revealed to her, her true place.
She carried her passengers lovingly - so the angels did sing,
They were flown into Heaven to touch God’s face.
Departed from Indianapolis to the windswept streets of Chicago
American Airlines Flight 4184 knew her prescribed route.
Frozen by ice, the wings shuttered and decided just to let go
as we mourned, pleaded and cried... What is life really about?
Several years past the day of their sudden deaths
and a memorial still stands along that empty country road
reminding us of their brief and mortal breaths -
Though we feel eternity, life is only a brief and quiet show.
Remember them and others as well in the last word of this poem
pause in silence and hold your breath...
thankful that we have known them.
Dedicated in Memory of those who perished on
American Airlines Flight 4184
October 31, 1994
It is good to remember the dead, lest we forget.
SG
Reviewed by Mary Bramley (Reader)
Reviewed on April 11, 2006
My dad was on that plane
just some corrections to the poem
There were 68 people who died, 64 passengers, 4 crew memebers, I think it's importnat to remember the crew memebers too.
THis gave me chills up and down my spine...through my entire body. How brave of you to write something like this. No one will even forget such pain. Sad and straight forward piece. You have done a great job of remembering. We never let go of memories.
so sad when planes crash, either by accident or otherwise. and then people wonder why a lot of people are scared to fly. may we never forget those who lost their lives on a.a. flight, #4184! god be with their families! :( >tears <
This book represents a thirty-day period of my poetry journal. Each poem addresses
the dominant thoughts occupying my mind during the early morning hours of a given
day.
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SG
just some corrections to the poem
There were 68 people who died, 64 passengers, 4 crew memebers, I think it's importnat to remember the crew memebers too.
And it was a soy bean field, not corn field
Air crash we had here in Halifax, gives if not a reason at least solace in the fact that God was there as well.
Felix
Emilie
this is a heartbreaking write--we should NEVER forget
(((((HUGS))))) and love,
karla. :(
PJ