"...SE-5a"

I wrote this years ago. I've posted it here, and on my assorted pages, and blogs over the centuries. I like it...bleeping sue me.  I recount how one of my model planes got loose in Prospect Park. It flew away. Disappeared. I supposed that it’s flying still eons later. By now over China or Tibet. I should have put a message in it.

The cord snaps, and we see my 12 year old self receding away as the plane begins it’s new life. The WW1 model Royal Flying Corp SE-5a flies above, and past Prospect park. Summer tail winds add lift, and mileage. It soars over the Brooklyn Bridge, over Chinatown, and Greenwich Village, past Times Square.

By now the fuel is gone. The prop sputters fails, but the warm updrafts from the city keep her going. She’s gliding on course for Central Park. Prospect’s more famous sister.

She Skims 51st street, past Columbus Circle, over the Sheep Meadow she goes. Till at last just past Bethesda Fountain my little plane slips into, and is entangled in the upper branches of an old oak. Here begins her decades of service. This as a nest for generations of blue jays, and robins.