Kites

They float in the air
like yachts and half balloons
and children's nightmares
— and long-tailed, long-winged insects
more beautiful than the ones
that crawl on the earth.

I watch them gliding and diving
and hovering steady as a nail in a board.
I admire them all. But in the end
I search in the grass for an earwig,
under a log for a woodlouse
or, in a corner, for a spider.

Earth, don't desert me.
Though I walk on you,
separate one,
I belong to you
like an earwig, a woodlouse,
a spider.