Corby Loch on Armistice Day

// Marka Rifat

Chaos does not always descend. This day
it rose, silent at that distance,
a speckled ascent flecking the porcelain sky,
while a nation bowed its head in annual memory.
But here, a murmur first then the world was
cacophony. Fear, alarms, pleas, demands, cries.
Mass distress filled my ears, stopped all thought.
Low over me, hundreds of geese
their curved gleaming bellies the fuselage
of Vulcan bombers. Desperate for order,
a swarm in crisis, wings beating the air.
From the melée, ragged squadrons emerged,
aligned, sharpened and lifted, on course for the south.
And the world was silent again.