Grab the wooden reel and a new kite.
Bang the back door. Run. The wind is up.
Let loose the yellow diamond high above
a stretch of park, acacia grove and gums.
This flimsy tissue bird has two cane struts.
You bought it at the City Show last summer
from an improv station-wagon tailgate store.
These kites are lightweight, freestyle acrobats
that can spin clockwise, and then opposite.
You repair them after crashes to re-launch
an eye in the sky. Surveil and then unwind
your childhood tension, place your faith in thread,
a wish-machine to soar above the gridlock suburb
and be free to wander. Believe in soul.
It’s time to board a jet for India.

On touchdown, a yellow floor line leads you
to Arrivals and the eye-scan passport game.
Slip through with luggage and a booking chit
to grasping taxi hands that drive you down
the airport road through fog or smog that smells
of dung and petrol. Dodge a bony cow.
Spend hotel nights with a ceiling fan that has
Tourette’s, then take a slow train going south.

The rattle cage of families invites you
to share some peanuts, rummy and time-pass
with Bollywood singalongs and thermos chai.
Time to debouch where serendipity leads
on foot through thin lanes to a pink hotel
and vista of thousands standing on their roofs.
You’re here, you see the sky of geometry,
those flimsy tissue-paper wish machines
that ornament the skyline like confetti.
Yes, you have reached the Festival of Kites
in spring. Here strings reel out their brighter selves.
All turn as one, a rainbow wheel; in Time.
You have arrived. This vital place says be.
Death-camp suburbia is buried
like a photo turning sepia in the wallet.
Displaced settler, you have one task — to see
the diamond in the mind. Time to ascend.
Let saffron lift you through another eye.

Chris Mooney-Singh has published several collections of poetry. In addition, his fiction has appeared most recently in The Best of Asian Speculative Fiction and SARE (The Southeast Asian Review of English). He also writes plays and film scripts, performs spoken word, and is an educator with a doctorate in creative writing from Monash University, Australia. Get his free eBooks @ https://linktr.ee/chrismooneysingh