Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, expectations, flight, poem, poetry on July 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »
She tried to fly
by catching moths
and tying their wings
to herself.
He tried to fly
by studying flight
as if reading
were enough.
But in their drive
to fly they both
lost sight of what
they had—
two legs that leap
and run and walk,
and kick and climb
and dance.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birds, brain, flight, memory, poem, poetry on November 3, 2016| 2 Comments »
Somewhere in the 100 billion cells
of my brain is the memory
of the playground in second grade
when Jenny told me birds could fly
because their bones were hollow,
and, she reasoned, if we could lose
enough weight, we, too,
could have hollow bones, and we, too
could fly.
Surely linked to that memory
are thousands of other neurons
that disprove her claim—
neurons related to air pressure, thrust,
strong breast muscles, osteoporosis—
but there is, perhaps,
still one cell in there somewhere
across the synaptic gap,
that lights up at the memory
of Jenny’s suggestion
as if to say,
wow, that’s cool,
let’s try it.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flight, mothering, poem, Rumi, unlearning on May 23, 2012| 5 Comments »
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.