Tanz in den Mai ("Dance Into May")

She'd dazzled Manhattan
on account of the storms,
and briefly graced Jersey
as she passed by to moor.

Twelve hours late for her date on the shore,
hardly alone, ninety seven aboard.

Seven eighteen as she turned to the wind.
Six men ordered forward to keep the ship trim,
at seven and twenty; the moor lines were dropped
with Morrison heralding the zeppelin's last stop.

At five minutes more, fabric fluttered to aft,
a blue spark, and fire enveloped the craft.

Thirty-six seconds and thirty-six lives
extinguished in merely the blink of an eye.
In her hour of darkness, she lit up the sky,
the Hindenburg tragedy prompting the cry:
"Oh, the humanity!  Why, Charlie, why?"

Notes:  Herbert Morrison was the announcer for the arrival of the celebrated Hindenberg

            To this day, it is unknown what actually caused the fire that doomed the famous dirigible

            Not included in the poem (yet) is the irony that this tragedy occurred so close to the celebration of May Day, when, in pagan times,
            fires were set to celebrate the end of long days of winter.  Also, maypoles are often erected on this day to celebrate the coming of
            spring.  I couldn't help but draw a parallel in my mind between those maypoles and the mooring towers at Lakehurst Naval Air Station
            on that fateful day, May 6, 1937.

            The aluminum frame of the Hindenburg was returned to the German government and used in building up the Luftwaffe, the German
            air force, a lynchpin in the burgeoning Nazi war machine.