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Flight

By B. H. Fairchild b. 1942

In the early stages of epilepsy there
occurs a characteristic dream .... One is
somehow lifted free of one’s own body;
looking back one sees oneself and feels a
sudden, maddening fear; another presence is
entering one’s own person, and there is no
avenue of return.
—George Steiner

Outside my window the wasps

are making their slow circle,

dizzy flights of forage and return,

hovering among azaleas

that bob in a sluggish breeze

this humid, sun-torn morning.

Yesterday my wife held me here

as I thrashed and moaned, her hand

in my foaming mouth, and my son

saw what he was warned he might.

Last night dreams stormed my brain

in thick swirls of shame and fear.

Behind a white garage a locked shed

full of wide-eyed dolls burned,

yellow smoke boiling up in huge clumps

as I watched, feet nailed to the ground.

In dining cars white table cloths

unfolded wings and flew like gulls.

An old German in a green Homburg

sang lieder, Mein Herz ist müde.

In a garden in Pasadena my father

posed in Navy whites while overhead

silver dirigibles moved like great whales.

And in the narrowing tunnel

of the dream’s end I flew down

onto the iron red road

of my grandfather’s farm.

There was a white rail fence.

In the green meadow beyond,

a small boy walked toward me.

His smile was the moon’s rim.

Across his egg-shell eyes

ran scenes from my future life,

and he embraced me like a son

or father or my lost brother.

B. H. Fairchild, “Flight” from The Arrival of the Future. Copyright © 2000 by B. H. Fairchild. Reprinted with the permission of Alice James Books.

Source: Poetry (October 1984).

Biography

B.H. Fairchild was born in 1942 in Houston, Texas, and grew up in small towns in Texas and Kansas. The son of a lathe operator, he attended the University of Kansas and the University of Tulsa. His poetry explores the empty landscapes of the region of his birth, and the lives of its working-class residents, including his own family and friends. Frequently described as a poet of the “sacred,” Fairchild’s work has gained renown . . .

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