Ode for Orville and Wilbur Wright / David Moolten 13 --
from Cape Hatteras / Hart Crane 15 --
Altitude / Stanley Plumly 16 --
Poem of Flight / Philip Levine 18 --
To Beachey, 1912 / Carl Sandburg 20 --
Coming of the First Aeroplanes / Dick Allen 21 --
Flight / Babette Deutsch 22 --
Courage / Amelia Earhart 26 --
Flight / Pamela Alexander 27 --
Ascent / Anne Morrow Lindbergh 29 --
from The World Goes Black / Enid Shomer 32 --
Take-Off / Peter Thorpe 34 --
Climbing Out / Diane Ackerman 35 --
First Flight / Daniel Hoffman 37 --
Small Plane in Kansas / Thom Gunn 39 --
Tempus Fugit / Richard Harteis 40 --
Those Who Wrestle with the Angel for Us / Brigit Pegeen Kelly 41 --
Flight Instructor / James Applewhite 44 --
"A Lonely Impulse of Delight"-W. B. Yeats / David K. Vaughan 45 --
High Flight / John Gillespie Magee 46 --
II Worlds Above, Below, Within --
Imperial Airways / Louis Untermeyer 49 --
An Aerial Photograph / Thomas Carper 51 --
Flight / George Oppen 52 --
Flying / Florence Ripley Mastin 53 --
Flying at Night / Ted Kooser 54 --
from North / Rosanna Warren 55 --
Over Ohio / Michael Blumenthal 56 --
Flying Home from Utah / May Swenson 57 --
Windowseat / Sandra Meek 59 --
A San Diego Poem: January-February 1973 / Simon J. Ortiz 60 --
Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief / Maxine Kumin 64 --
On Hearing the Airlines Will Use a Psychological Profile to Catch Potential Skyjackers / Stephen Dunn 65 --
A History of Air Travel / Anna Leahy 67 --
Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet / Tony Hoagland 68 --
Flying, Reflying, Farming / Richard Hugo 70 --
United Flight 608 / Leonard Nathan 72 --
Airplane / Sherman Alexie 73 --
FLT #4372 / Jeanne Murray Walker 76 --
At the Controls / Robert Vas Dias 78 --
Landing / James P. Lenfestey 79 --
III Airplane Visions, Airport Truths --
Unconquered Air / Florence Earle Coates 83 --
Aeronauts / Rhoda Hero Dunn 85 --
August from My Desk / Roland Flint 87 --
An October Nocturne / Yvor Winters 88 --
Buzz Plane / Robert Francis 89 --
Jet Plane / A. M. Sullivan 90 --
Air Show / John Updike 91 --
Air Show: F-16s above Cleveland / Mary Quade 92 --
Watching the Planes Come In at La Guardia / John Frederick Nims 93 --
Dragon-watching in St. Louis / Carter Revard 94 --
At a Motel near O'Hare Airport / Jane Kenyon 96 --
Sparrows at the Airport / Anthony Ostroff 98 --
Unwinged Ones / Ogden Nash 100 --
At the Airport / Howard Nemerov 102 --
Dulles Airport / Eugene McCarthy 103 --
Kennedy Airport / Aaron Kramer 104 --
Airport / W. S. Merwin 106 --
Bad Weather at the Airport / Kurt J. Fickert 108 --
Vacation / Rita Dove 109 --
At the Terminal / Patricia Hooper 110 --
Passengers / Billy Collins 111 --
Jet Lag / Peter Makuck 113 --
Eagle Youth / Karle Wilson Baker 117 --
About Eyes / Edwin Rolfe 118 --
A Leaf from a Log Book / H. Babcock 119 --
Fury of Aerial Bombardment / Richard Eberhart 120 --
Raid / William Everson 121 --
Homeric Simile / William Meredith 123 --
Death of the Ball Turret Gunner / Randall Jarrell 125 --
Losses / Randall Jarrell 126 --
Tuskegee Airfield / Marilyn Nelson Waniek 128 --
V-J Day / John Ciardi 131 --
War in the Air / Howard Nemerov 132 --
Aging Poet, on a Reading Trip to Dayton, Visits the Air Force Museum and Discovers There a Plane He Once Flew / Richard Snyder 133 --
Thunderbirds / Tony Dater 134 --
Cobra Pilot / Don Receveur 135 --
Air Field / Robert Siegel 136 --
Sonnet for an SR-71 / P. L. Delano 137 --
War in Bosnia / Walt McDonald 138 --
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus / William Carlos Williams 141 --
To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph / Anne Sexton 142 --
Icarus / Edward Field 143 --
Ceiling Unlimited / Muriel Rukeyser 145 --
Old Pilot / Donald Hall 149 --
Lost Pilot / James Tate 150 --
Airman / Anonymous 152 --
Missing / Gardner McFall 153 --
Man in the Dead Machine / Donald Hall 155 --
Waiting for Icarus / Muriel Rukeyser 156 --
In Flight / Jennifer Regan 157 --
Black Hole / Robert Pack 158 --
Black Box / William Matthews 161 --
Libyan Airliner/Egyptian Acrobats/Israeli Air Circus / Sam Hamod 162 --
Lockerbie / Charles Munoz 163 --
Women of Lockerbie / Richard Robbins 166 --
Above the City / James Laughlin 167 --
History of the Airplane / Lawrence Ferlinghetti 168 --
Earth's Bondman / Betty Page Dabney 173 --
Dog Asleep / William Stafford 174 --
Heel & Toe to the End / William Carlos Williams 175 --
Crew of Apollo 8 / Elaine V. Emans 176 --
Countdown / Ron Penoyer 177 --
A Farewell, a Welcome / Lisel Mueller 179 --
To the Moon, 1969 / Babette Deutsch 181 --
Flight of Apollo / Stanley Kunitz 182 --
Voyage to the Moon / Archibald MacLeish 183 --
Walk on the Moon / N. Scott Momaday 185 --
from Apollo / James Dickey 186 --
EVA Psalm / Raymond Roseliep 188 --
Annie Pearl Smith Discovers Moonlight / Patricia Smith 190 --
Astronauts / Robert Hayden 193 --
Witnessing the Launch of the Shuttle Atlantis / Howard Nemerov 195 --
Elegy for Challenger / Diane Ackerman 196 --
Viking / Brett Rutherford 198 --
Firmament on High / Laurence Goldstein 200 --
An Open Letter to Voyager II / John Updike 201 --
A Few Notes on the Poems 205 --
America in Flight: A Brief History 211.