What I Liked About Rex

      He devised the airlift that fed Berlin  

      There’s now a street   Rex Waite Straße  in his honor  

      Wing Commander Reginald Waite

      What I liked about Rex was his quiet manner

      his interest in archeology

      he’d flown biplanes over Mesopotamia

      over England’s shires

      noting old pathways

      meandering routes unseen at ground level

      how such paths came together
      at places often sacred

                         places once pagan 

      but whatever culture's there

      still performs its rites

      Rex had an ease with authority about him

      as when he got me to help him

      re-install wooden shutters

      one fine late Autumn day

      shutters that winterized French windows

      opening out onto the lawn at Foyers

     where New Forest ponies sometimes grazed

      such a fine day it was

      with the breeze lifting fallen leaves

      into a momentary vortex

      as  dry leaves spiraled up into a helix

      then fell back to the patio as calm prevailed

      there were no dark clouds in the sky

      except his good Lady

      who hated onset of winter

      Foyers where ponies brought their foals

      geese pecked at fallen quince

      wood was stacked by the front door

      ready for winter fires

      was Foyers such a place where old paths met?

      it seemed actors   actresses   often stayed there

      while playing Southampton Rep

      & poets came and went

      never paying rent

      © Dick Russell, 2013, 2016