THE KITE
Discover more from Wanderings with Kate
He arrived like a hand-hewn paper-mache kite
Unexpectedly released into my skies
Flying high, swooping close
To my upturned face.
I didn't recognize him at first -
Didn't know he was a kite
Light and delicate/strong and powerful.
At first he was simply another on the ground.
Then he flew.
I flew too -
Rediscovered flying.
I came to see the cross bars that shape him
Into four connected triangles
None quite matching another
But creating a wholeness that can fly.
Gradually the tears and mends of the years,
Patches on the surface of the triangles,
Revealed thick and thin layers beneath the skin
Of the diamond flying bird.
Sometimes I fly right beside him.
We sail endlessly
Our love carrying us easily
Diamonds together in the sky.
Sometimes we sink to the ground
Earthed, resting, our cross-bars crossed.
Sometimes he sails so far
I can’t see him as he escapes this earth place.
I am left
Bound to earth
Crashed before I even fly.
In those times when he flies and I stay here alone
I can only stare at the tail
Dangling and pulling on the diamond bird
An inextricable extension of his flying shape.
Bedecked and marked with the tied bows of
Every relationship and journey made
Some frayed and faded, some still bright and crisp
Each intricately pulling on the kite as it flies or falls.
It is the tail of the kite that guides its path
Too short and it cannot fly straight
Too long and it cannot leave the ground.
The crossbars need the tail as the shape needs the length.
When two kites take flight,
Launched from the earth at the same time
Keeping their own diamond shapes as they soar
It is their tails that tangle them up.
Catch and drag
Holding back
Losing direction and lift.
It is in the bows picked apart and re-tie attempts
The long strands of lives that criss-cross
Making new bows and knots, binding together into one
Where the tangled tails hold the kites down.
Separate the tails carefully - don't cut them, unmooring the guide.
Gently untie the knots and leave the bows to fray their own way.
Create new bows each to sit astride their own tails
Freed to fly solo in unique diamond shape.
Fly diamond birds
Side by side
Then rest, grounded, cross-bars crossed.
