sitting beside a red kite

I am sitting beside a wine red kite
for the companionship & quiet
We are in a field behind Food Country...
where the train tracks are busy to our front
and the dumpster behind us is being investigated
for boxes by a man intent on moving some place new
The kite is named Lucy Loo & never flies
except for those moments when I stand & stretch
as high as I can - I hold her by hand & she flutters
like a foolish dog with its face out the sedan window
She is charming in the way of a listening friend
that wonders off for a moment in high winds
to return with the smell of sunshine & the out of doors
There is a yellow flower hand drawn on Lucy Loo
and a triangle of possibilities in her lift of sails
Her rib cage is a cross & her tail ripples a grounding
she ignores more often than she should
The quiet we seek is oddly bound up in the train whistle
and the parking lot nearby bustling people we want to feel
but not see too directly - No effort to know them but
just knowing someone is there - a hundred someones
who leave their kites at home most days
I cannot let Lucy Loo fly because of a cracked rib
and a hole in her fabic that lets the wind through
without lifting or floating - always fluttering instead
But she knows nothing of kite rules - I destroyed the instructions
so that she believes she is doing everything perfectly
No need to buckle her with what is missing or beat down
her natural enthusiasm for a good time believing
she is a masterpiece of individual construction -
because she is! Who else would hang with me in an ugly lot
fluttering at the sky & flirting her natural beauty
in a bright spot of sun she glimpsed from her bashful twine whipped eyes

Reviews

[Tomás Ó C..]

I never saw a kite personifies like that before. I used to make my own from sally twigs and plastic bags. Never flew well though...

[jacob erin-cilberto]

what an allegory here...that kite is a wounded person---you try to help, seek solitude and quiet so both of you can do some heavy thinking about life and what it does to us...how we start out thinking we can fly and then end up too broken up and jaded to do that---but we still try to recoup what we can and then hold on to what flutter we have left.

really excellent poem.

[Corset]

To copy and paste a favorite stanza in this would be impossible.

[The Rock And Roll Cowbo..]

Protecting loves ones is a natural human trait… but we got to know when to keep them safe and when to let them fly alone. Wonderful work.

[Phibby Venable]

so true, thank you for commenting & happiest new year!

[Chris]

I used to play in a rubbish strewn, hardscrabble lot behind a supermarket. Dumpsters and dried mud swirls and tufts of sawgrass... framed by a brickwall and asphalt parking lot off to a side. You could touch the sky there without having to see where you had to live each night. You had a dear friend ...I used to wish...

I CAN see you there. Well spoken.

[Phibby Venable]

thank you so much, Chris, yes - that is the feel of it, exactly

[W.k.kortas]

Who else could ever write "bashful twine whipped eyes"? The best among us is back.

[Phibby Venable]

W.k., thank you for such a beautiful comment. I have missed you!