I miss Amelia Earhart,
the outline of her twin-engine Lockheed Electra
through the depths of the Pacific Ocean
flickering across TV screens across the world
today;
a world much different from the one she left
on 2nd July 1937

I miss her
in much the same way
I miss the Hungarian opera singer Maria Ivogün,
whom I, of course, never met either,
but whose 78 rpm recordings from the 1920s and -30s
ignited a love for her that didn't acknowledge the years
between her and me,
to the extent that I often whispered,
playing her 78s, transferred to compact discs,
the illogical words: ”I love you then”,
from a distant future she never saw,
putting time in a funny place indeed

In Amelia's case,
I miss her smile, reaching me out of all these b/w photos;
I miss her tomboy appearance,
her devotion to discovery, her reckless courage,
- a lack
very well expressed in Björk's song ”I Miss You”
from her album POST, containing lines like:
”I miss you, but I haven't met you yet”
- and I ensure you,
love can flow way backwards in time,
and I can say, truly, to Amelia and to Maria,
that ”I love you then”!