Grandma’s Kite

One day, my dad made that huge kite,
blue and bright, strong and fierce,
with little orange bows,
happily clinging to its tail.

Many Sundays we tried,
to make it fly,
amongst the powd’ry clouds,
that lined my grandma’s groves,
but no air would show to take it up,
as it was build too solid, proud and tall.

And so it sat,
in the dusty corner,
behind the armoire,
up in the house they had grown up in,
my father’s father’s father and his father’s son.

The day came the old lady died,
and my old man because he,
was a spineless coward just like me,
didn’t breathe a word.

Thus the only one I ever liked,
in that damned family of his,
went to find her luck in another world,
and I failed to wave my goodbyes.

When the message finally was mine to get,
I went up to her house,
the one where the street bends and dips,
and tried to remember what she did,
when I would visit. The way she would get
all she needed for every meal from her little garden,
the way she would turn the dial on her phone.

Someone had put it next to the trash,
the blue faded, and all but one bow still clinging to its tail,
but there it was, eighteen years later,
still looking as stubbornly happy as one could.

And I know this all sounds so cliché,
but when I took it up that day,
to where her apple trees once stood,
the wind went under that kite’s wings,
like it was a feather, and that huge explorer,
finally soared to dance among those powd’ry clouds,
that to this day,
line my grandma’s groves.