What I Saw In The Sky | Jessica Lawrence
I looked up at the pockmarked sky
and could see the pilot
in a Phantom jet,
his eyes met mine
for the proverbial split
second in time, then he
made an acrobatic leap
above a pursuing MiG
which spewed ammunition
at my feet.
I watched two bucks
rut in the sky, the Phantom
turning back on its side
and like the smash of two
horned stags they clashed.
Locked like wrestlers in a hold,
intricately clasped,
fifty feet off the ground,
arm-grasping-arm, trying to
force their opponent down.
It was a day half-way
through the Yom Kippur war.
Syrian tanks had plunged
down the hills
in a vast migrating herd,
a stampede of cattle
rattling the ground.
Then the screeching
alarm and men shedding
hats and shirts
and sprinting into
uniform.
I was armed with
a duster, assigned
the old bomb shelter to
clean. I was nineteen
and unflustered, difficult
to explain the muster of
a teenage girl, the unfazed
assurance as battles raged
riveting millions all over
the world.
But I stood with
a duster in hand
after the siren wailed,
stepped out of the
shelter to witness
the battle as bullets
spit like hail and the sky’s
blue shield splattered
with metallic clatter.
I watched the smoke
rise as the MiG spluttered
and dived and did not
move from that spot
until the fighting died.
and could see the pilot
in a Phantom jet,
his eyes met mine
for the proverbial split
second in time, then he
made an acrobatic leap
above a pursuing MiG
which spewed ammunition
at my feet.
I watched two bucks
rut in the sky, the Phantom
turning back on its side
and like the smash of two
horned stags they clashed.
Locked like wrestlers in a hold,
intricately clasped,
fifty feet off the ground,
arm-grasping-arm, trying to
force their opponent down.
It was a day half-way
through the Yom Kippur war.
Syrian tanks had plunged
down the hills
in a vast migrating herd,
a stampede of cattle
rattling the ground.
Then the screeching
alarm and men shedding
hats and shirts
and sprinting into
uniform.
I was armed with
a duster, assigned
the old bomb shelter to
clean. I was nineteen
and unflustered, difficult
to explain the muster of
a teenage girl, the unfazed
assurance as battles raged
riveting millions all over
the world.
But I stood with
a duster in hand
after the siren wailed,
stepped out of the
shelter to witness
the battle as bullets
spit like hail and the sky’s
blue shield splattered
with metallic clatter.
I watched the smoke
rise as the MiG spluttered
and dived and did not
move from that spot
until the fighting died.