My skies have not seen kites since ones
we flew at ten, at twelve.
We climbed the hill above the creek — snow
might still be on the north sides of boulders — climbed
beyond the boggy cow pasture.
Holsteins looked on with mild
interest.

We lay on our backs —
after the first run into wind,
playing out cheap cotton string,
not too fast, waiting for
the first tug, would it hold?
It held, always held, that string.
Holding the balsa tip, awaiting the grab
of wind, the thin paper bellying,
our shouts pushing it up —
we lay on our backs in the tall grass.

Rolling hills—today’s, mine—ocean hills:
so very green in winter, so ochre in summer,
so nearly bare — a copse or two, a cow
or two — hills empty and round and crying
for kites but bare of kites.
Quite bare of kites, children in my world
do not kite.

Then,
mine was blue, my brother’s yellow
with tails long and majestically multi-patterned:
strips from dishtowels worn through.
String all the way out, surely
above the stratosphere by now.

We lay upon our backs, thrilled
to thoughts of sudden lightning, talked
about whether clouds could see us.

© by Diane Lee Moomey. 
Used here with the author’s permission.