Thursday 15 March 2018


Leonardo’s Flying Machine
(as seen modeled at Montreal Museum)

by Katherine L. Gordon


The longing overwhelmed me
when I saw it,
as it must have possessed Leonardo,
the time-traveler whose spirit could leap
outside the confines of the medieval mind
to fly into a universe of thought,
where man could soar with birds
in a light canvas-on-wood
swallow-tailed, one–with–the–air frame,
catch the updraft
glide over green spaces
close the eyes and inhabit the wind.

He comes through the centuries
as I touch his machine
built to tantalize the earth-bound.
I want to devour the grace,
the hurtful beauty
of a glider born
to bridge not only man and bird,
but free the soul,
lift you over the torpid,
no fire, no sound,
a kite into eternity.


* * * * *

Katherine L. Gordon is a rural Ontario poet, publisher, judge, editor and reviewer, working to promote the voices of women poets around the world, as they are now flowering into acclaim.  She has many books, chapbooks, anthologies and collaborations with fine contemporaries whose work inspires her.  Her poems have been translated and awarded internationally.  Latest book: Piping at the End of Days, Valley Press.


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