Neptunus Lex - One Year

Carroll Fairfax Lefon

November 9, 1960 - March 7, 2012

And shouldn't I have,
knowing that this might be the last,
raced my craft around the sky once more,
just to feel the stick clasp my hand back,
joined in the thrall,
dancing with the wind
waltzing with the blue
knowing that never after should I feel so free,
so sure in risk, so sure in this, my calling
taming this sky with the pride of experience.
my future just a glint in the horizons
I hurl myself up to meet my fate.
-Brigid 

I was extended an invite to travel out West to Fort Rosencrans for a remembrance of the man known to us here as Neptunus Lex, for contemplation and camaraderie, and afterwards, with fellow “Lexicans” and his wife Mary, some toasts at Shakespeare’s Pub (Lex’s favorite local watering hole). It was to be  a celebration of his life and the bonds many of us shared with him, by his inspiration, by his very life.  I was unable to fly out there, this time, but I did pen some words to share, as asked.

All I have of Neptunus Lex is some photos, and a folder full of  words.  So many words, ones that make you think  and question and search and ones that make you cry, even as they lead you to where you were meant to go. I open it up again, as I open the drapes up to the trees, birds flitting from branch to branch.

I  never met Lex, at least not in the way one would think.  Our paths crossed in a manner that was as unimaginable as it was poignant.   

But that is not how I shall remember him.  How I shall remember him, is a photo, standing next to his aircraft, a big blazing smile on his face. It was the face of a warrior, yet it possessed that reconciled luminousness of angels in stained glass.  The light upon him was so bright, that when I looked at it, the body of the man and his craft  had a clarity, almost a brilliance, but without form or dimension, no longer man, no longer machine, no longer flesh and heart and bone and structured metal, but simply the brilliant inherent capacity to fly as fully and as freely as possible.

That is the way I wish to remember him.  His Light

I close that folder; beyond the shadowed window, the sound of winged birds has not ceased, nor faltered.