Airling... and Other Poems

80 pp. ""Airling" is a new word in our language, coined to suggest the writer's disenchantment with the clumsy and mechanistic realities of aircraft, for anyone who seeks to fly. Gulls and hawks move through their native element with grace but man's attempt to emulate them is awkward, at best. From primitive times, Clarke suggests, man has watched the flight of birds with a certain envy, but even today, for all his inventiveness, only man's questing spirit can match his desire for the experience of flight. His shorter lyric poems reflect his love of birds, his identification with the primal force of the sea, his awareness of the fragility of life, and his delight in all the nuances of language."