How Shedding Feathers Taught The Children to Make a Kite, and What the Kite Taught Everyone
       

A boy and a girl, then a dozen more,
found something new to do with feathers.

They wove them together with strands of their hair,
fastened a string from more strands of their hair,

then ran their kite up the sky
to be a bird again.

What they saw was amazing:
Stories had been blowing by, stories the wind had been telling

but no one could see; now their kite was like a book
full of rare new words.

Only the children could read this language,
so parents weren't the only ones who were wise,

and more became possible—strange colors
wove into the First Ways, changing, which was good:

Fire leaps up from the kindling first
and always needs new branches;

no story the wind tells goes straight to one conclusion;
when dancers arrive, play music. Even with abandon.

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Copyright © 2011 Rob Carney All rights reserved
from Story Problems
Somondoco Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission