Flying my kite...

The wind was up yesterday. Not the gusting wind of Autumn; nor that biting Winter wind that has yet to come, but a full late Summer wind, not cold but then again not warm - a kind, kite wind.

Picking up my kites, well three of them – my old blue faithful flyer (which flies with only a breath), my luminous pocket and always with (the one I keep in the car), and my bi-plane (in honour of the wind, a rare event as it takes some time to put together); we made our way to the beach to catch the clouds and fly.

I’ve always flown kites, from small boy helping my inept and angry father to drag a fluttering kite along the ground like a broken bird, to second-childhood middle age – with everything in-between. On windy days I fly my kites, and if I don’t I wish I could.

I’ve made a kite or two and will again - from cane and brown paper and sealing wax. Once I made a kite from clear, strong, polythene and fine, transparent, plastic rods - it looked for all the world like a ghost kite shimmering in the blue of the distance – a phantom, an impression of where a kite might once have been.

I like the way the wind pulls at the spool-bound unwinding twine. These kites have long and longer strings, I add and add; sometimes too much - and with a snap my kite is gone. Leaving behind just empty space where once it swooped and dived – and in my hand a piece of useless nylon.

Yes, the wind was up yesterday. It had a smell of lands far away, heavy with herb and apricot, I could almost here the sound of the bazaar in its blowing as I clutched tight my string and blew and flew to lands far away, flying up and out upon the wind.

I wonder where it blew from?

I wonder where I blew to?