Kite Karma by Jennifer Vaughan

I'm just another unflown kite, hanging on the wall Down here near this foreign ground Feeling weak and small Never floated on the breeze Staring down at tops of trees Afraid to feel their reaching arms Wary of their rooted charms

My fading colors tell my shame Inside dreaming, outside tame My unscarred wings, my untorn tail My guarded beauty doomed to fail For never having taken flight Rejoicing in a laughing fright Bending to the mean stiff breeze High above the docile trees Floating, diving, shifting, still As the wind commands, I will

To lose myself this anchor wall And break free at the wind's wild call To be dared just once to take a chance To heed the wind and learn its dance To have that memory to sustain me Not longing dreams to haunt and drain me

And even if the limbs should catch me Their prickly twigs scrape and scratch me Wound my wings and steal my tail 'Til I hang broken, withering pale Then feel the freedom fighting gale Attempt to lift my sagging sail And for a moment to prevail But in the end to cease and fail To age and lose what makes me me And fade into my hanging tree My bones a symbol of a life that was free

To die the death of a wounded kite Tackled in the midst of flight Is a death I'd gladly seek still young than remain forever here unflown And yet I hang here and complain My earnest longings all in vain For I - a kite - am only one And I - a kite - can't fly alone