What will our children do in the morning if they do not see us fly?
—Rumi, “The Way Wings Should,” translated by Daniel Ladinsky
Dear Rumi,
You tell me to fly, to cartwheel
around the sky, to soar, to reel,
to spiral in the wind. But
there is a nest and two hungry mouths
and two bodies not yet fully feathered.
It’s easy enough for you to advise
I should let my heart play,
as you say, “the way
wings should.” You
probably had someone else
at your nest to care for your
young while you unfurled
your wings and wheeled with Shams
and felt the joy of rising.
Perhaps I am too literal.
Perhaps you mean later in life.
Perhaps you mean bit by bit.
Perhaps you mean fly in this moment,
wherever I am. Perhaps you mean
I have put too much of a cage
on the word “should,”
have limited notions
of what flying looks like.
I thought I knew what wings
should do. But maybe this letting
go of what I thought I needed,
perhaps this, too, is flight.