Lillian B Namesake
no relation to my acrophobic nucleic acid & inclination to mimic Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo
yes elation as your astonished fan shaking & waiting in the wings after your walk on the wings
you as tenor sax trumpeter swan, taunting sanity, gravity & even lust
can you autograph a time-travel photograph before slipping back into your auto, that Model T racing to midwestern carnivals unknown
can you wave another acrobatic leap from waitress to running board to airfoil to sky goddess?
Let me dream us up, up to a bipolar biplane, where a titanic frantic gust turns ghastly into a frightening free-fall
too breathless to scream, miraculously melding, we plunge feet-first deliriously into a haystack half a mile high
breaking our fall, laughing as two needles find each other to sew silken parachutes for future death-defying dates unknown
& perhaps you then hop a ride with your air ace instructor, hoping to fly the Spirit of Detroit around the world before he dies,
my theatrical wooing simply no match for your preposterous pioneering dangling daredevil barely visible jittery jitterbug to the heavens,
until Depression Great & enforceable regulations ground you for a good mirage, I mean marriage.
Almost a century later, a lone memorial sits idly in the dimly-lit bleachers, a misplaced headstone
happened upon by chance, decades after my maternal-guided museum tours become plaintively inopportune,
my aspirational inspiration trying to earn a pilot’s license before transformation into teenage mom,
yearning for grandchildren overdue, extolling strolling exhibits before she crash-dives her nine lives, unable to escape the centrifugal force of fatal fatigue.
Lillian B Nameplate
a hidden marker most likely to be shrugged away by ensuing grandsons and granddaughters experimenting with flight at much safer altitudes
or not at all.
I had to look her up. She sounds fascinating! I did notice that her middle name is Amelia. That makes sense.
No relation or personal relationship with you? Quite the fantasy though.
I thought about relationships with people that have very unusual occupations, are famous, be they writers or musicians or actors or whatever. They attract a great number of people to them but a real relationship seems mostly untenable.
So I wonder - if that is the underlying attraction. The unavailability of someone we can really only truly communicate with through fantasy.
We want these people to exist. We want them to be out there encouraging us somehow to be better in our own lives and strive for more. But we don't do it for ourselves. We let their lives speak for us.
We need remarkable people to exist. They show us what we are capable of. We lust after them and want to possess them somehow. Something that of course, can never be done.
Such drive! Such determination and sacrifice in every part of a person's life to attain such lofty goals!
Remarkable people!
Lillian deserves due recognition for all that she accomplished in her lifetime! A truly amazing and fearless woman who lived her life.
Thank you for sharing her with us. đŸ’–