Just Another Flight Poem by Gert Strydom

At the wind blown, dusty
and cold De Brug that is full of tents
we get into lorries
and at Bloemspruit air force base
near to Bloemfontein
airborne soldiers armed and equipped
at sixteen hundred hours
get onto aircraft

and the Hercules is hardly in the air
(like it is with soldiers
most start sleeping)
as if this thirteen hundred kilometres
is just another flight
to Grootfontein air force base

and I see the sun setting
stars moving past in the sky
and the big yellow moon
while we cross the airspace
of Botswana
and the coming action
is already gnawing at me.