“MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!”
screamed the voice of the pilot,
his words
piercing through the
mundane air traffic control
communications
emulating
from distant speakers

“Good God! the plane’s off the radar screen
It must have gone down…!!!”

CP AIR FLIGHT 21- JULY 8, 1965
is what’s inscribed in stone
at the memorial cairn
in 100 Mile House,
where scores of
rescue workers,
fire fighters,
spectators,
journalists
and ultimately,
law enforcement experts,
followed the logging roads
and old bush trails
more than a half century ago.

“Bodies falling
from the tree-tops…”

It’s etched in the old man’s
memory from when he helped
search for survivors.

The plane had burst into pieces.
From 15 thousand feet
it slammed into the forest.
Bodies of fifty-two passengers
and crew
scattered amongst
trees, brush and aircraft debris.

“Three days to find them all….”

Explosive residue from a bomb
detonated on the floor
of a lavatory.
No accident
but a deliberate act
of murder.
Impossible to determine
the culprit who’d
wreaked such havoc.

Victims from small northern
communities
such as Burns Lake,
Fraser Lake and Chetwynd.
And from as far away
as Winnipeg.

Four possible suspects
whose loved ones
learned
their dead relative may have been
a murderer.

Was it the gambler?
The explosive expert?
The loner who liked guns?
Or the angry young man with a pistol
in his pack?

We may never know.