by Paul Faulkenham
Everything seemed fine, we had been flying about an hour now,
The stewardess had served some wine,
Laying back in my chair, I closed my eyes,
No thoughts, no cares,
The wine would make me sleep as it would be a long night,
I pulled the cover up to my chin keeping me warm,
The plane shifted a little to the right and then back to the left,
Thinking it was just turbulence, I gave it no thought,
No lights could be seen below and I figured we must be over the sea,
I felt funny, nothing that I could explain,
But here it was again,
The plane seemed to falter,
A flame could be seen out of one engine,
The red light came on telling us to buckle up,
A stewardess came running down the passageway,
Telling everyone to bend their heads between their legs,
There was no doubt, we were going to crash,
I thought about my family and how I probably wouldn’t see them again,
My husband and kids who meant so much to me,
How I would miss them, then we were upside down,
The last things that I remember hearing were cries of my fellow passengers,
Prayers of many kinds and the words,
Oh God, nooooo.
Note from Paul
“I have one poem that I can share with you. It’s called ‘6 Minutes of Hell,’ and if you read the poetry on my website, it is one of the poems that is there. Perhaps there will be people on you’re mailing list who can relate to this poem. I wrote this poem in dedication of the people who died on Swiss Air Flight 111 that crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia, nearly 3 years ago, and if you would like to put that quote, please feel free. Also I can’t start to tell you how many letters that I have received, because of this poem. Many people have lost loved ones in plane crashes, and the most recent that I can think of was when a Concord Jet crashed.”
