For Lilya

FOR LILYA You belong to the tragic Eastern skies fighting for your Motherland in your very own Yak 1 fighter plane. See you in my mind’s eye as you squint against the sun as g-forces hug you tight, knife edge turn above Russian steppe, flash of sun on your slender wings. In an airplane of wood, you not yet 22 years old flying and fighting. Tell me, Russian girl, does a Yakovlev handle better than a Lavochkin La-5? I am helplessly caught up in your story. Is it true you had white lilies in your cockpit? Did you glimpse them as you fell to earth, dying at twenty two? You, the White Rose of Stalingrad, fallen heroine, air ace in her airplane of wood, my airborne heroine. Finally laid to rest, a Hero of Russia, no known grave for forty years but under the wing of your fragile warplane. As you force landed your plane near Dmitriyevka, they found you – did you die in their arms, mortally wounded by Nazi gunfire? For Mother Russia you paid the ultimate price in her time of need and darkness. One so young who did her duty and who out flew them all. At the height of your youth death took you, your life, your airplane. Yet I remember you, will not forget. If I could cross the gulf of time what would I say to you? To see you smile would rock my world, to watch you fly in your fighter made of wood would be a dream. Blue sky on white snow, green airplane with red stars, blonde haired girl forever in Nature’s blue sky, flying…