Kite Weather
Clever you! You’ve made it work
first time without any practice.
The kite we bought for your birthday
jinks and swoops and dives,
skywriting a scribbled message,
which says you’re a natural.
You held it up like a placard,
while I attached the string,
unreeling it walking backwards,
as if I were laying a fuse,
then, on my nod, launched it high,
willing your hopes to take flight.
I pulled on the string and it reared,
as if bridling at the restraint.
Up it floated up into its element,
becoming a seahorse balanced on its tail.
It seemed the sky was the limit,
till I reached the end of the line.
Out of string and out of ideas,
I began a brute tug of war.
It wasn’t until you took over
and allowed the kite some slack,
that it showed us what it could do,
running through a sequence
of rhythmic-gymnastics routines,
its bow tail trailed like a streamer.
When I come to reel it back in,
I find it hard to wind down,
rising higher hearing you say
it’s your best ever afternoon.