THE NEWFOUNDLAND QUARTERLY :: ONLINE EXCLUSIVES

Online Exclusive for #435 (b)

The Amelia Cycle

Miss Laura meets the aviatrix

She asked me how I come to be there
that's what I remember. Her long frame,
nearly as tall as the men and they tall besides.
She had a lovely leather coat on her
and a pair of leather boots to match,
laced from the sole to the knees.
An aviator cap. My dear,
I didn't know what she was.

Her gas tank had give out.
And my father, you see,
he was well-gifted in the hands.
Clocks. Timepieces. Filing and filing
and filing a piece of iron to save
someone locked out of their home.
He made a casket for everyone that died.

Do you want a glass of wine?

Like I said, it was her gas tank. He fixed it and that was how I come to be involved. I didn't know what she was. She never went out of my mind.

Feminine to her fingertips

The newest entrant to the transatlantic sweepstakes is striking both in personality and physique. She is tall and slender, with a head surmounted by wavy, curling blonde hair, which is surprisingly short when it is plastered down, but unless she has been swimming, never is.

New York Times, June 3 1928

Landfall at Powle's head,
toes first and skid to slow
two miles down the long arm
the hills rusting
under the lazy sun.

In the cupped hand of the harbour
a dory lurches from the barren shore.
Arrives with a tip of the hat and
a This way, Miss.
Removes us to land
while heads turn slowly
to watch our trespass.

A Large Stake

Dear Snappy; I have tried to play for a large stake, and if I succeed all will be well. If I don't, I shall be happy to pop off in the midst of such an adventure.

from A.E.'s will, excerpted in the New York Times, June 4 1928

Night and the air smells of salt.
The men asleep upstairs, their
bellies full of unending mutton.
Oh, the mutton. I fear I shall begin
to sprout hooves and skitter clickety-clack
down the stony lanes.

Twenty-nine years have conspired
to bring me here. My breath materializing
in the fog as if I were Shackleton
marching slowly to his grave.

Tonight I am afraid.
Of forgetting to breathe.
That the sun may never rise.
Tonight, any calamity is
ever so slightly
possible.

Communion

Dr. F.D. Gill wired Hon W.J. Higgins that he had the honor to be the first to welcome the lady to Newfoundland. Earhart later partook of a luncheon à la Trepassey, consisting of chicken and dandelion, which much pleased her fancy.

The Daily News June 5, 1928

You could lose the houses
amongst the potatoes
and inevitable cabbages.
Pole fences straining
against the slanting wind.
To keep the animals in or out,
one was never sure.

Who could turn stone
into such plenty?

Here emotions are as unexpressed as nature is barren



Every pond a scraping
with its hem of cobblestone.
The stunted spruce
crowd like sullen children.
An abandoned caribou skin
translucent with weather
rolling tufts of hair into the wind.

I pocket a piece of bone gnawed smooth
by the hungry ocean. We are all dogs
nosing amongst the rubble.

All God's children got wings

Graveyard thick with thorns.
Stones with their backs toward the sea.

Dearest Mother, we have laid thee
In the lonely grave's embrace.
Till thy memory will be cherished
Till we see they heavenly face.

Such furious lives.

I shall want to go quickly
so they can say:

Here lies Icarus
who left us for the sun

Hamlet would have been a bad aviator

Nearly everybody he asks them where they are heading, because such a question seems natural to seafaring people with whom a landfall is all-important.

New York Times, June 5 1928

Coyness is not to be counted among my sins
but I travel by a fickle compass.
We will step into air

and be gone.
How do I explain that
history is a thing of physics?

One of the senses which must be developed in flying is an acuteness in recognizing characteristics of the terrain

Light spills across the broken skin of this place.
Rocks as bones bared to the biting wind.
Grey alchemized to silver.

I am pressed flat to earth
locked inside the calligraphy of landscape.
The sentence eludes.

Violet. Cheerio - A.E.

Carrying a stout-hearted young woman as co-pilot, the Friendship hopped up from here at 9:51 A.M. Eastern Standard Time for a transatlantic flight.

New York Times June 17, 1928

All hands at church, the shore
returned to blessed emptiness.
We bundle our food in our arms
and leave behind: our movie camera,
our pantyhose, our curling iron, our
largest thermos,
our fear.

From a height, the earth
flattens to monochrome,
falls silent.

We are a shout of colour
across the telegraph flimsies.

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