Capt. Robert L. Hughes - "Silver Ships"

by Mildred Plew Meigs
This was a poem sent to Robert L. Hughes

Information provided by Michael B. Hughes, the son of Robert L. Hughes

Guiding my bird of metal
One with her throbbing frame
Floating down like a pedal,
roaring up like a flame

Winding the wind that scatters
Smoke from the chimney’s lip,
tearing the clouds to tatters
with the wings of my Silver Ship

Grazing the broad blue-sky light
up where the falcon’s fare,
riding the realms of twilight
brushed by a comet’s hair.

Snug in my coat of leather,
watching the skyline swing,
shedding the world like a feather
from the tip of a tilted wing.

There are trails that a lad may travel
when the years of his boyhood wane,
but I’ll let a rainbow ravel
through the wings of my sliver plane.

Mildred Plew Meigs