Contributed by Sharon Ann Jaeger
It is as if the towering clouds would open up
and swallow the kite as the mountain did
the children of Hamelin, though there the
dancing lines of music wove with their feet a parallel
and here there is only the dull
blast of wind, fitful and raw.
Whether the frail paper, bright patch of blue
in a muted sky, can bear the stress of the gusts,
whether the thin string knotted to ascend
to a Babel height can hold, aligns us likewise too
taut and tense, 'til it is at length no matter\
that who does the flying here is a fiction,
the kite will break free if it will, or dash
to the earth at our feet in a mimicry of fate,
while all our loss and longing wings at will
in the sheer loft and pull as we hide for the story’s sake
what we have at stake, while in the wind
our origami selves are ripped away