Is a boy with a kite,
Who, catching the wind
like a winged gull,
Runs toward the glinting sun
setting on this summer’s day;
And, stopping briefly
at the park’s rim,
For a picture and a warning
not to go in or near the water,
Perches on a rock,
turning toward his mother,
This small spot of a boy,
Growing smaller in her eyes
as he wanders off
Alone for the first time
without her,
Waves his hand,
filling its palm with sky,
And wades into a river
she can no longer see;
Having been pulled from it years ago,
for fear of drowning.
Then stretching his limbs,
the hair of his arms like feathers-
Quills from a birds wing,
his heart, lighter than air
He alights, at dusk, with the geese
across the river
Flown, grown into the years
that come, headlong
From across the sea
like a wind,
The child, has gone into a photo
from which an older man, years later,
holding in his hand.
wonders when, if ever, the boy will land! .
John Tansey
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/childhood-for-my-sons-wherever-they-are-i-don-t-know/
