March Mascot: Joyce Brinkman
After Poet Laureati, Joyce Brinkman, poet laureate emeritus of Indiana, wrote this poem about her experience and flight home.
March Mascot
Like a shiny gray bullet
Delta Flight 1890 speeds
along the runway, while
across a brown band of ground
above a parallel landing strip
a Kansas City hawk appears
to race the plane. Black-
kissed wing-tips dip and
lift as the raptor’s regal head
cuts into the air ahead.
When the weighty mechanical
bird takes flight, the hawk lowers
its dark tail-feathers to settle
on the lane of natural turf
between the two hardened
surfaces of white. Standing
erect, its soft white underbelly
ripples in wind currents and
lightens in the eastern sun.
After taking off with this avian
escort, it will be harder to root
against the Kansas Jayhawks.
