The great man was in great pain,
beyond the purely physical.
The old lion sat and watched the waves
feeling bereft and miserable.
His mind kept imagining, over and over,
His son, Quentin, in a second rate plane,
turning to dogfight with a squadron of Folkers:
an act gallant and brave, but in vain.
His son’s Nieuport went down behind enemy lines;
The body retrieved from the flames.
He was buried with honors by his erstwhile foes
Who well knew the young pilot's last name.
His aged father wept for the loss of this son
He repeatedly whispered his name.
They say that the father’s spirit died with the news
Afterward he was never the same.