Amelia Redux 1937-2012:
A Pilot's Log

 Saipan

Garapan Prison
Sags 600 feet
From Hotel Kobayashi
--Undulant distant hills
Mimic Burbank hills--
Jungle-lacings retake
Cinder-block footprint,
Outdo oxidized-iron bars
With elongate frenzy
My cell's adjacent 
Cattle rustler cubicle,
Frondescence clots
Slots built into corridor
For dispensing of
Starvation rations,
Algae-stained supports
Edge collapsed floor,
Outline stoup as privy
I find initials "AE"
--One-time scratched
With pebble into
Eight-inch thick wall--
Touch incised moniker
With my fingertips 

Saipan

I run to my plane
--Safeguarded--
By she-oaks grove,
Tangent Tanapang Bay,
Nieves weeds
Her tapioca field
Beyond seaplane hardstand,
She says:

I watched and they took her to place where there
was a hole dug. They made her kneel in front then
they tore the blindfold from her face and threw it 
into the hole. The soldiers shot her in the chest and
she fell backwards into the grave. 

Electra's aluminum rind
Shines through evergreens
I see a woman 
Admiring my ride:
She tours fuselage,
Pats cantilevered wings,
Wears white sunhat,
Kimono robe,
Hanten jacket,
Rubber boots,
I greet Tadashi Hyodo,
First licensed 
Female pilot of Japan,
--Flyer of Curtiss Jennys
In the Twenties like me--
We bow, shake hands,
I give her gyroscope fob,
Enter Lockheed's cockpit,
Turn cranks, flick levers,
Fire-up twin radials,
Push fist-fulls of throttle
My avian crosses
Piteous channel,
Arcs Tinian Isle:
Top-secret military complex
Just south of Saipan,
Gapes with open-mouths
Of A-bomb loading pits

Oahu, Hawaii

Pacific basin rotates 
Agin continental spin,
Peace Sea's downsizing,
Yet meridians distend
Infinitely aquamarine
Guyots goad wave base,
Hoard Cretaceous debris
Hoary bats with half-leaf wings,
Escort Electra to Oahu,
Forage for beetles and moths
Above Pearl Harbor twilight
Moku'ume'ume--island of
Ancient bonfires--
Is ringed with battleship graves,
Luke airfield,
--Vaunted springboard
To troposphere--
Languishes in para grass
I circle wooden water-tank
Towering o'er seaplane hangars,
Bank steeply, check wind sock,
Advance into zephyr breeze

My compass-star points--east--
I warm up radio tubes,
Adjust headphones, mike,
Speed-dial all frequencies,
Uncoil trailing antenna
For conference call:
Wire suspends above
Earth's rounds,
Whips like fancy script
Across constellate night,
I broadcast word cloud:

          Violence migrates,

Love migrates, Violence migrates,

Love migrates, Violence migrates,

 Love migrates, Violence encodes

As patterns of scars on bodies & 'scapes,

        Love encodes as patterns

           On butterfly wings

I become a secret agent for feelings

When the Pleiades rise to signal summer

Laura Stickney 

photo of Earhart with Electra, Burbank Airport,

1936 by Albert Bresnick. Interview of Nieves 

Cabrera Blas, from Witness To The Execution,

by T.C. Brennan. Moku'ume'ume: Ford Island,

Oahu, Hawaii