Reproduced with permission from The Beacon Supplement
ODE TO GANDER
Ye distant hangars, looming masts,
That crown this barren place,
Where rain and wind and icy blasts
The driving snow embrace;
And ye who from the stately brow
Atop the tower, th’expanse below
Of gleaming tarmac do survey,
To send upon their haughty flight
Eastward thro’ th’ Atlantic night
Our throbbing birds of prey.
All ye who on your duty bind,
And murmuring labours ply
‘Gaints freedom’s hour, to leave behind
This Gander memory;
Who with remorse and mind defiled,
And moody madness laughing wild,
Denounce with rankling tooth
The powers that sent you here, unsung,
These dark contagious fogs among,
To waste your golden youth.
Alas! Too conscious of their doom
The little victims play,
No sense have they of ills to come
Nor care beyond today.
Yet see how round the corner wait
The ministers of human fate,
Lurking obscure in Post-War days!
Ah, show them how they’ll surely learn
In swarming city streets, to yearn
For Gander’s Careless Ways!
How when, obsess’d with faded care
In age-long fretful office hours,
Or gripp’d intense by black despair
That numbs the soul with icy powers,
The memory oft, ‘mid fitful noise,
Of thoughtless half-forgotten joys
Shall stab the overburdened heart.
And they’ll recall the times they strayed
‘Neath Gander’s blanket sky, and played
Their unpretentious part.
The fight on Deadman’s silent shore
To land a palpitating trout
The festival dance on shuffling floor
The “Jive at Five,” the wrestling bout,
Th’ encounter with a carefree jeep
Round twilight corners half asleep
In Autumn’s saffron evening light,
A Liberator’s solemn ease,
Loud-wing’d and lrodly, o’er the trees
In thundercloth’d flight.
To each his memories: All have known
Some fleeting hours of cheer,
That quelled the universal groan,
Oppressing every ear.
So when the broadening years unfold,
And tales of youth are oft retold
With wild invention ever new,
Lo, those who loudly cursed their fate
Shall Gander’s bounteous praise relate
The countless ages through.
researched by Carol Walsh