Another poem in Bittersweetness & Light is
“For Those Who Have Forgotten How to Fly.”
The first stanza…
For those who have forgotten how to fly
It is not like riding a bicycle:
It is indeed possible to lose that sense
Of perfect balance
That lifts you
Into the embrace of sky.
This poem came to me title first, and I tried to think about what comfort can be given when something so vital and fundamental has been lost. Sometimes grief is irrevocable, but not always. Sometimes when you lose a part of yourself some portion of what was lost can be reclaimed. Don’t just let it slip away.
Like many humans, I’m fascinated by flight, which often seems like a metaphor or embodiment of joy. That’s probably why there are about 20 illustrations of birds and butterflies and dragons, and other flying things throughout this book. (And why slapping a pair of wings on any creature makes it magical, as demonstrated in my 2022 post F is for Flight.) Maybe to birds, flying just feels like walking does to humans… but it just looks like so much fun!
Marketing Moral: Have you already read my book? Post a review! Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble… Small-time authors are in desperate need of reviews on these sites to help feed the algorithms that will recommend our books to more people. A rating is excellent, and a sentence or two of review is even better! Your review really can help a book take flight.
Proper Moral: Learn to walk before you run, and dance before you fly, but practice makes perfect, so if at first you don’t succeed, try try again.
What’s your favorite flying creature? And how do you feel about flying on airplanes?
[Picture: Hope, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2015 (originals sold out);
Detail from Bright Butterflies, rubber block print with watercolor by AEGNydam, 2015 (one original left!);
Shadow Dragon, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2024 (one original left!);
Sing from the Heart, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2024;
Blue Jay, rubber block reduction print by AEGNydam, 2010 (originals sold out),
all from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025.]
6 comments:
Almost worth being a bit naughty if there's a chance of coming back as a bird...
Forgetting how to fly must feel awful and a consolatory poem is a nice thought. I do not like airplanes, they hurt my ears and fly faster than my soul.
As a kid I thought you could indeed learn how to fly. I mean, you can run and almost everybody did, you can learn how to swim but not many did learn (I lived by the sea so I knew). Maybe flying is so hard you just have to practise really, really hard to learn. I tried really, really hard :)
I like flying on airplanes! I get the window seat, so I can stare down at the ground, because it looks so beautiful from that high up. Sometimes I get self-conscious about doing this, but usually the only thing I worry about is whether the person next to me would rather the window flap thing was down so they could sleep or see their screen better. But I generally just go for it.
Hmmm... I'm not sure whether it works that way, but it's worth considering for sure! lol
Yes, I used to hope that if you could just get enough of a running start and flap hard enough, like a goose...
Oh, I'm the other person on the plane who still has the window shade up so I can look out the whole time! Luckily recently my only plane travel has been with family and so my husband is the one next to me (and knows always to let me have the window seat).
Post a Comment