Flying Kites
for RH
By Lisa Vihos – Sheboygan Poet Laureate
We thought we were just flying kites,
But learned something new that day.
Our paper wings were revealed to us
as conduits on the wind, deliverers
of messages. Was it aliens, angels,
or spirits that spoke to us, as if
on tin can telephones of old, with lines
connecting us to greater data?
Kite flying, we learned, is a study on being
human: tug and drag, lift and dive, dip and flutter.
You soar and then you crash. But then,
some force comes and picks you up again.
If we told our parents what had happened,
what we’d learned that day, they’d laugh.
They’d say, You kids, such stories. Leave us be
and go fly kites. Go talk to aliens again.
This poem was written as a response to a painting by Ray Hagerman and first appeared in Intersections: Art and Poetry, 2016