After watching the recent Lockerbie trial on the news I became intrigued. I researched it on the internet and it touched a nerve somewhere in me. I have never written poetry before but wanted to in this case. my college tutor wanted me to show others, so I am putting it here. bare in mind it is fictional, so my facts and numbers might be wrong:

When I was just a little boy,
Flying was my thing,
When I slept I dreamt of flying,
And flew all through my dreams.

When Dad said we were going abroad,
I didn't care where to,
I'd be flying on an aeroplane,
From here to Timbuktu.

It is years now since you are gone.
The image of your faces should be faded now, vanished;
but I turn my head and hear your laughter and your voices...
Why?
I haven't ever met you;
yet I feel like you are my brothers,
who have left for only a short time and will return soon,
with hugs and stories for their sister...
Touching your names, black ink on white paper,
should not make me cry.
It does.

Maybe because I think you would stand beside me,
to fight for all the things I find important:
justice, fairness, equality, non-violence,
for all those virtues you must have held dear.

Do many of you remember Pan Am 103?
The plane bombed from the sky over Lockerbie?
It happened December 21st, 1988,
with all those aboard unaware of their fate.

As the "Maid of the Mist" pushed back from the gate,
It was behind schedule, the take-off was late.
But terrorisrts had determined this to be a doomed flight,
All those on board would die that night.

As the plane took to the sky, headed out to sea
It had to pass over Lockerbie.
Already flying at 31,000 feet, and so
The explosion was unheard by those down below.

As parts of the plane fell to the ground,

How many times can a Mothers heart be broken?
How many tears can a Mother shed?
How much love as yet unspoken
Can never be said?

It was four days until Christms
Everywhere carols could be heard
The day a "terrorist bomb"
Brought down the "mechanical bird".

Two hundred fifty-nine bodies rained down
There were eleven more dead on the ground
And parts of the plane "Pan Am 103"
All scattered over the town of Lockerbie.

Devastation and havoc was everywhere
Folks in the town looked around with despair
Asking the inevitable "why"
Was it really time for so many people to die?

So I loved you and love you still all in all.
When you are still, my love is there for you, a staff
on which to lean that will not break nor fail
to guide you as you climb or leap or stand quite still;
a comforter to hold against the chilling wind.

I live inside you now I can no longer live
beside you. I will never leave you utterly
alone. I chose you freely and in joy to be
my partner, wife, companion. My vow remains in place
though I am gone; this gift is more then memory allows.