Last Leaf

I had a very frustrating morning dealing with errands in town, nothing went right and everything took ages. When I eventually got home and out with the camera the sun was setting.

I've chosen the above shot as it includes the sky. I love today's poem High Flight (An Airman's  Ecstasy) by John Gillespie Magee Jr. I remember when Ronnie Reagan quoted it after the Challenger Disaster. I usually link but have decided to reproduce the poem in full here.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. 

I said in my recent blip from Damyns Hall Aerodrome that I've never wished to learn to fly. I think I do understand how people who love flying feel about it though. My son has been obsessed with aviation ever since he was old enough to point to the sky and say, "Aeroplane."