NIGHT FLIGHTS: AMELIA EARHART'S DREAMS
By Linda Eve Diamond
Imagine Amelia’s mind at rest, beyond all confines of reason or knowledge of time, soaring through the uncharted, nightly flights of dreams…
BREAKING THROUGH
She’s having that dream again—
about the condescending men.
They hover above her
muttering something
about a woman’s place…
as if there’s no debate.
Her plane is a giant
powder puff.
Undaunted, she flies
record-breaking highs.
She crashes through glass,
sailing through the ceiling in the sky.
Through the shimmering shards she goes,
shining on through dangerous rainbows.
Onward and upward she flies—
brave as any man alive.
MEMORY’S FATEFUL TURN
Tonight Amelia flies
over the moon
with a cow, somehow,
singing hey diddle diddle…
but they never did land.
Grounded on a star
they watch the search on Earth—
wild questions, desperate theories,
agony and tears…
No one in the country of dreams
or the whole continent of stories
can solve the mysterious riddle.
When Amelia was a child,
she sang, Hey diddle diddle…
Wanna hear a riddle?
HEAD IN THE CLOUDS
Amelia dreams she’s a child
chided for daydreaming.
Amelia!
Amelia Earhart!
Keep your head out of the clouds
and your feet on the ground!
The buttoned-up voice
half frightening
half frightened
shrieks this urgent advice.
Amelia turns
and giggles in her sleep.
POETRY
Amelia dreams she flies
because the endless sky
is a wild, wondrous poem
she tries to memorize.
CLOUDS
She dreams she flies deep
into a thick, white cloud.
She hears her sister’s voice
calling out from the past…
Meelie! Can you see it?
Can you see Cherryville?
Amelia loved that game,
their search for a mythical place…
always, though, summoned home
before they’d reach Cherryville
…but not today...
Amelia’s going all the way.
Meelie! Do you see it?
What’s it look like?
“Meelie” doesn’t reply.
Her little sister cries.
Amelia’s disappeared.
Her plane has crashed,
cracked beyond repair
in Cherryville.
Good thing Amelia’s grown
wings of her own.
​
​
©2013 Linda Eve Diamond, The Beauty of Listening
Night Flights is included in Our Poetic Tribute to Amelia Earhart, a collection of poetry inspired by Amelia Earhart, on display at the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum. The poems are also posted in an online gallery by the Navel Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum.
