Caution, poem ahead. Proceed at your own risk....
"If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me." -- Psalm 139
That long green swell that sears my eyes
As I drowse on this bed of black stones,
Is it the Irish coast rising in the dawn
Beyond the brushed silver of my cowling
Where, throughout the night, I trusted
Not in some desert God's directions,
But like all fools who dreamed my flight
In the calibrated compasses of man?
That rushing sound, is it the crowd at Le Bourget,
Swarming past the barriers and lights
To scavenge my Spirit; to lift me up
Into the air that only heroes breathe?
Or is it the age-old sigh of sea on stones,
Known to those who pace the shingle
And the swirled black sands that wrap
Impossible islands in a shawl of waves?
That painting daubed on the chapel's window --
Not the roselined mandala at Chartres
Where flame in glass misprisoned sings --
But a cruder Savior, bearded, browned and popular,
An icon obtainable to plain sight, a trim God
Limned flat upon the glass in dull gesso,
And, when light moves behind it, looking down....
Is this the sign in which, at last, we conquer?
Conquer? I'd laugh the laugh of stones
Had I but eyes to see and lips to breathe.
No, I am content with my reduced cathedral
Here above the ocean where man and apes
Together waltzing lie, having done at last
With all horizons, having done at last with sky.
If you would see me now pass by
The small green church where ancient banyans
Bloom with shade, and guard
The tower and the bell which you
May toll for you or me, or other souls
Not yet delivered to the stars and sea.
And then, retreating, mark the tree
Whose tendriled branches hold but air,
And shadow both the church and stones
Beneath which wait both apes and men,
Who, foolish with their hunger for the air,
Swung branch to branch up all the years,
And letting go at last they learned,
Through my night's leap, to rise.
Sea, stone, tree, ape and Savior:
These now my long companions are.
Better here, I think, in this dank green
Cartoon of Paradise, this slight-of-hand Eden;
Better here beneath the pumice stones
Where strangers drop a wreathe a year
Better here than there --
Hovering over the widening waves alone,
Suspended between the old world and the new,
Trusting in man's compass to guide me home;
Descending down sharp cold blade of dawn.
Better, much better, here at last to wait
Where the shawl of the waves enfolds
That fire they could never snare.
-- At the Palapala Ho'omau Church, Hana, Maui
Is it true that he not only chose the site but dug his own grave?
Posted by: Kim at April 16, 2006 9:35 PMI made the trek to Hana on the Island of Maui several times when I lived in the islands. At the time, I only thought of Lindberg as the guy who flew the Spirit of St. Louis and lost a son to an evil kidnapping. Nothing prepared me for understanding why this man would become a virtual exile on Maui and the nearly unreachable Hana.
That was until I read about his passion for Eugenics and his near-worshipping of Hitler and the idea of a "super race." He was a contemporary of Margaret Sanger, fellow Eugenics fanatic, and eventually it all caught up to Lucky Lindy. As he was hounded day and night by the media demanding answers to some pretty tough questions, he instead went into this self-imposed exile.
Hana was and still is a beautiful place. But it is made less so with the presence of his remains.
Posted by: Michael at April 21, 2006 7:40 AMI'm well aware of the complete scope of this man's life. I am pleased that those more pure than he can visit the grave and bask in the their truth.
Posted by: Vanderleun at April 21, 2006 9:39 AMIt doesn't take a lot of effort to be purer than the Eugenics folks. However, it was my impression that he backed off a lot of the racist garbage in his sunset years.
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