My prayers are with the families of those who met an untimely depature from us in the recent plane crash in Nigeria. Thankfully we've not had another year like 1996. That year began with the January Zaire African Air AN32 crash at Kinshasa that killed 227 people, followed in July, by a TWA Boeing 747 Jumbo that exploded approximately four minutes after takeoff in New York killing 230. After that, in November, an ADC Airlines Boeing 737 crashed near Lagos claiming 142 lives. November was pretty bad because in New Delhi, an India Saudi/Kazastan Jumbo -jet B747 took out another 349 souls.
I was so horrified that I was wondering if a higher power was mad at humans for flying so close to the sun. That's why I wrote "1996 II: Remember Icarus".
Today, I have just been reading some more about the Bellview crash that claimed 117 lives in 2005. My thoughts are with their families today.
1996 II: Remember Icarus
This is a mad year for air travel
unhappy skies grumble and roar
from Long Island through Lagos
a father here, a mother here,
a child there, roast in the sky
trapped in bellies of birds we built.
(C) 1996 Nnorom Azuonye
First published in Letter To God & other Poems (Nsibidi Africana Publishers, USA, 2003)
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