Just a short addition for those who may never have seen this poem
written by Badwater BIll almost 30 years ago. It seems the right time
to reprint it.

================================================== =============

A Tourist of the Earth
by William Phillips


There are few who have known the things I have seen
While dancing the skies enacting my dream.
Above the Earth with grace and poise,
A ballet of flight with my flying toys.

Often in a glance I have perceived the wing
As a naked sculpture, a most beautiful thing.
Sliding through air with simplistic splendour,
An artistic grace with feminine gender.

When high above the Earth aloft all alone,
I think of the wing evolving from stone.
From earth, to metal, to pure design,
Powerful in shape, dynamic in line.

At peace with it, along for the ride,
Is my soul and life, with that wing by my side.
Through clouds and rainbows, over all sorts of turf,
At home in the sky.


Source :
posting on rec.aviation.homebuilt on Sun, 11 May 1997, by Badwater
Bill.

Notes :
Written in 1980 by William Phillips.