Kite Caught in Tree

I woke up remembering the children to whom I once taught writing—the ones who came to my house during many summers, the ones I later joined at a garden, Chanticleer.

For many, English was a second or third language. For some, home was an un-airconditioned two rooms in the heart of West Philadelphia. One was a burgeoning actress. One had a vocabularly that utterly dwarfed mine. One was an internationally acclaimed child pianist and composer who, though already in graduate school at the age of 12 and a frequent guest on David Letterman, hadn't had, in his short life, the chance to hang out with kids his own age, or to write his ideas onto the page. One hailed from Egypt, and one hailed from Pakistan, and one was my son, oh, the stories they told, and oh, how I loved them. Truly, I loved them all, not a single exception to that rule.

Today, perhaps because my friend the literacy coach Andra Bell had written to me about the children she loves, I woke up thinking of them.

Once, in the garden, I asked the children to break into groups and to walk the paths with me—some imagining themselves an elephant attempting to shimmy down the narrow macadam, some as 17th century explorers, some as a raft of musical notes, and some as a kite whose string was caught in a tree. As teams they collected metaphors. Singularly, then, they wrote their poems.

This morning I remember my friend, Samir, and his gift of a poem to Chanticleer, and to me.

What A Kite Thinks of a Garden

I the kite
Avoid water,
Avoid elephants.
I seek out danger,
I want to know
Where everything is.
We have fears
Of lawn mowers and trees
Because we always want to be free.
We attract to color
Because we want to see
If there are more of us
Who want to be free.

Samir