Kite umbilicus

A moon wet with rainbow ring cannot illumine
Cause for wind to crackle like an omen
In one leafless tree till you recall the boy
Whose kite drowned yesterday in a branch of sky.

No need for condescending to his dismay
But look for him leading his mates tomorrow
From flying ages beyond what you and moon
Have spent your joined and separate light upon.

You see your son among them, his words and gestures
Estranged by a second fathering far from yours.
In that compassionate gaze of his you feel
Him measure your earthy politics of soul.

Their pity speeds with violence, flings you up
Until the cord that feeds and tugs you snaps.
Where they begin breathing their very lives
You gasp on distance which suffocates your loves

And down they plunge with you, drowning in the tree.
There winds erode your warning against the sky
To bare crossbones of kite which even the earth-bound
Moon forgets, circling around, around.

                           —Ernest Sandeen  (1908-1997)