The Best of Ruskin Bond Part 26

This was your song:

It isn't time that's pa.s.sing by,

It is you and I.

Kites

Are you listening to me, boy?

I am only your kitemaker,

My poems are flimsy things

Torn by the wind, caught in mango trees,

Gay sport for boys and dreamers.

My silent songs. But once I fas.h.i.+oned

A kite like a violin,

She sang most mournfully, like the wind

In tall deodars.

Are you listening? Remember

The Dragon Kite I made one summer?

No, you are too young. A great

Kite, with small mirrors to catch the sun

And eyes and a tongue, and gold

Trappings and a trailing silver tail.

A kite for the G.o.ds to ride!

And it rose most sweetly, but the wind

Came up from nowhere,

A wind in waiting for us,

My twine snapped and the wind took the kite,

Took it over the flat roofs

And the waving trees and the river

And the blue hills for ever.

No one knew where it fell. Boy, are you

Listening? All my kites

Are torn, but for you I'll make a bright

New poem to fly.

Cherry Tree

Eight years have pa.s.sed