Once every ten years
somebody claims to find a clue --
a shoe, a piece of plane,
a bone -- saying Here -- she was just here
on this tiny island,
or, captured by the Japs.
Here's proof.

We'll never know perhaps
what happened on that longest leg
not meant to be the last.
You took off from Lae
in the wrong kind of wind,
climbed into cloud...
the rest was silence.

My mother told the story
when I was so small,
told of the flight
with Noonan -- minor character in the case --
navigator, not a lover:
he's there to help.
She seemed intrigued,
proud almost--as if
it were her adventure too.

Years pass.
We see the film, clip
the feature in the Sunday paper,
play our wretched dreams,
mate, breed, lead family and
professional lives,
become redundant --
in time, and rather late to be
missed too much (outstaying
our welcome in the world)
are placed, with ceremony,
in our plots.

But you -- unfixed in stone
transcend, you soar,
inspire -- always tall, hair like a boy's,
like Ganymede in cap and goggles,
pure white scarf.

I hope they never figure the finale
where you came down --
dig up a relic of the leather cap,
a scrap of silk or -- horror of horrors --
find you intact, monkey-faced,
shrunken, like a saint mouldering
in a glass case in an Italian church --
and lay a plaque
drawing pilgrims to the spot.

I'd rather there's no end of it,
no place of rest
no summing up
no final page to terminate --

just infinite blue
and the high clouds
skyriding
beyond consciousness,
beyond all the questions.

Poetry Magazine