Center for Public Awesomeness

Flying

by Richard Wilbur - August 31, 2009

From the New Yorker


Treetops are not so high

Nor I so low

That I don’t instinctively know

How it would be to fly


Through gaps that the wind makes, when

The leaves arouse

And there is a lifting of boughs

That settle and lift again.


Whatever my kind may be,

It is not absurd

To confuse myself with a bird

For the space of a reverie:


My species never flew,

But I somehow know

It is something that long ago

I almost adapted to.