Member-only story
A Poem of Introduction to Beryl Markham
She made the transatlantic flight
Nonstop
West with the Night
In the dark, freezing cold
Torch and compass
Altimeter and stars
Guiding the way.
In her words,
“We fly, but we have not conquered the air.
Nature presides in all her dignity.”
Tonight, I sleep in the Kenyan home where she was raised and steeled,
Having everything,
Then nothing,
Again and again.
Love and loss
Fame and obscurity
The lot of life lived on the edges.
In the end,
Wild, nostalgic
Out of Africa memories
Resurrected her memory in the years after
She had gone and
The world had forgotten the name,
Beryl Markham.
