Flight

for Emma and Noah

When your feet took off
from the concrete
on which you stood
did you imagine that you were suddenly rising
above all of us who were left behind?

Did you feel unrestrained by gravity
and that your passage from this place
would lift you toward a brilliant sky-
lit by stars?

Was it that you imagined that wings
would take you somewhere above all of this?

I can imagine it, the freedom you felt as you took flight.

I just wish those wings had appeared,
that the stars had guided you
and you could come back to us.

I want you to know that
we are still here,
always waiting,
for our own flight.