Kite Days

Betsy Joseph

April 16, 2023

Certain spring Saturdays when a strong breeze signaled it was time,

we would trek to the neighborhood store

returning with kite and string and no small measure of excitement.

Those were glorious times for two brothers and a younger sister

with hours ahead for launching and flying our carefully selected kite.

From a cast-off sheet our mother had donated,

we began cutting strips for the tail which we tied end to end,

carefully knotting until we were satisfied.

The taller of you would hold the kite as high as you were able

while I took steps backward with the tail

handling it reverently, almost like a bridal train.

You both would test the air with fingers moistened,

sometimes bickering about the wind’s direction,

and adjust your positions accordingly.

Then, as prearranged, the faster of you 

would leap mightily forward as the kite was released,

one hand clutching the ball of string

while the fingers of the other hand held loosely

to the string’s mid-way point.

I watched jubilantly as you took off, older brother issuing advice

to younger who ran more swiftly than most boys on our block,

all the while trying to dodge tall trees and pesky electrical lines.

Our launched wonder soon joined other Saturday spring kites,

colorful paper shapes bobbing and mingling,

seemingly mere specks in the cloudless sky.

At that moment, staring up into the dizzying heights,

I could not have felt more important

for I was a sister among the brotherhood,

a member of the tribe.

Betsy Joseph lives in Dallas and has poems that have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry books published by Lamar University Literary Press: Only So Many Autumns (2019) and most recently, Relatively Speaking (2022), a collaborative collection with her brother, poet Chip Dameron. In addition, she and her husband, photographer Bruce Jordan, have produced two books, Benches and Lighthouses, which pair her haiku with his black and white photography.