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Vintage Colorado Poetry Past Poet Laureate Poem of the Week March 22, 2004

Colorado's fourth poet laureate Milford E. Shields lived in Durango and served from 1954 to his death in 1975. A poet of the Cold War years, Milford E. Shields interpreted the role of the poet laureate in the traditional sense: one who celebrates significant state events. His vigorously worded patriotic poem "Air Force Academy" celebrates the 1954 announcement by the Secretary of the Air Force that Colorado had won the competition to be the home of the Air Force Academy and that the campus would be built north of Colorado Springs.

Air Force Academy Let now our strongest eagles come    To this great State that stands so high, Here where our mountains point them home    To nest within dynamic sky. Let now America's high right    To higher place in heaven's sun Be blazoned by their matchless flight    Until both tide and time are won. Let them now wing Old Glory through    Most highest reaches men call space--- Beyond our Colorado's blue---    We ask it by God's holy grace.                        --Milford E. Shields Reprinted from:  Milford E. Shields, Poet Laureate of the State of Colorado.  Extension of Remarks of Hon. Wayne N. Aspinall of Colorado in the House of Representatives, Monday, July 26, 1954.  Congressional Record.  Appendix: 5495.