The kite over Venus

I don't know how to fly a kite.

Never got the thrill of getting cut by the string.

But since the past two weeks

I long to see kites in the sky everyday.

I wait for the evening when I can climb up the roof,

And just sit in the breeze and watch them dance,

Pulling one another's leg.

The breeze teases me, reminds me of the walks at night on open roads,

But bestows a tinge of nostalgia too, for I am the same child who used to look up at the birds at this very spot and name them to her mother. 

When you can't see who holds the end of the maanja

The kites suddenly come to life.

With the colours and the tucks.

While I sit there at sunsets,

The sky splits into two 

The envious eastern blacks and the flaunting western blues meet halfway through, 

Just to have the wedding embellished, studded with the infant stars.

The Orion, hunting for eyes looking up, heads turned up, to shine brighter than ever.

Venus, the illegitimate King of the skies

Is my favourite.

It always swims on the blue side, unblinking.

But as this bronze kite flew over it

Shimmering in the scarce light,

Glittering with the utmost simplicity

I couldn't look at Venus anymore. 

I could feel him staring at me,

He likes my eyes in his. 

But the kite fluttered with ignorance, carelessly.

It danced and tucked and leapt and sparkled.

In days of confinement, I realized how we have turned blind to the beauty in vicinity,

How bliss can be tied to the ground,

And how sanity can be charmed by the minimal.

Ayushi Mahajan