They flew for love, flew for something that was new, then flew again, to go home Taking Flight, the first poetry collection from journalist turned poet Aileen Ballantyne, takes you on a journey through time and place. From the 1969 Moon Landings to the Lockerbie disaster and beyond, these poems are the personal stories of people who will be remembered long after the headlines are history. An astronaut tracing his daughter’s name in the sands of the Moon; a time-travelling magician from the Qin Dynasty; a young policeman working amidst the Lockerbie disaster; a soldier/mother making war remotely every day from her home in Nevada – these people are pulled to the present in Ballantyne’s poems, some literal, some lyrical and all heartbreakingly real.