“Let’s go fly a kite, up to the highest height”
Mary Poppins
See the magnolia bursting
with what could be and the blue-grey
two-story shy beside it? There,
go in now, up the stairs and back too many years
into what could be, into the blue-grey
and stair-stepping into the long hallway of age,
go in now, staring full-face all the many years
that separate adult’s bed from child’s dream.
Two-stepping down the long hallway of age,
here where you cannot stand still—
between adult’s bed and child’s dream—
this is where you learned to fly.
There is a time you cannot stand still,
a time to leap from the blue-grey hall.
This is where your voice learned to fly
bursting from throat through song, through story,
each time leaping from the blue-grey hall,
“up, up into the atmosphere” of movies,
bursting from throat through song, through story,
“up, up where the air is clear,” Mary Poppins humming.
“Up, Up”—the atmosphere expanding as you moved
into each new sphere, past flying the kite, past the kite itself,
“up, up, where the air is clear,” beyond Mary Poppins. Humming
yourself into belief, away from the world below
into each new sphere, past flying the kite, past the kite itself,
into the more real sky, the universe itself, all that was waiting
of yourself. What you believed flew away from the world below
with loud singing past the rooftops and soot-filled chimneys
into the more real sky, the universe itself, all that was waiting.
Dashing down the long hallway, you bounce on one bed, then the other
with loud singing, past the rooftops and soot-filled chimneys,
past the Mary Poppins stories—childhood
dashed. Down the long hallway, past the beds, the other
self waits. There are always two stories. There
the blue-grey of what was. Over there,
what could be, every magnolia bursting.
