Poem 92

My history teacher (Poem 40) said we lost a generation of mathematicians who were navigators in bombers during WWII – and a lot of those were New Zealanders … this is me sometime in the 80s looking in the window of a shop in Manners Mall that sells coins stamps and Egyptian figurines, wondering what’s happened to the man behind the relics …

( references here to ‘coming in on a wing and a prayer’, wartime airfield newsreels identified only as ‘somewhere in England’ and Churchill’s Battle of Britain ‘but for these men’ speech … )

Distinguished Flying Medal, Logbook And Photos – $850

Icons
his book of trigonometric prayer
in his photograph the high wool-lined collar
of the leather jacket RAF hair
face unlight unserious
a man who took his mathematics over Germany
most nights
and recorded the tale in triangulations
walking the dividers over the map
and home
             dawn 'somewhere in England'
coming in on an equation
and the distant otherworld sound
of but for these men
on the radio …

but
for this man
the sliver and ribbon his fingers could take
photos that weren't the last
after all
         a book that didn't burn
against his chest inside cracking leather
scorching fleece

things that rode past death
to the later
more delicate sacrifice
of a price