Last evening I saw a paper kite
entangled in a fence.
So helpless it looked, so pathetic,
fluttering there in the dying breeze,
must have been resplendent once.

I thought of the little boy
whose labor might have made it,
how happy and proud he must have been
when he launched it in all its glory!

I imagined his glee, and in my mind
I heard his joyful shouts,
as a fresh wind caught his precious kite
and sent it soaring high.

Did he release the string on purpose
to send a friendly message across?
And I saw his small and anxious face
as he waited to rejoice.

But the wind must have dropped
so treacherously,
and earthwards drifted that fragile gift
to be cruelly caught in barbed wire,
ripping apart into colorful bits
that floated slowly away.

In the fading sun,
silently
I stood and watched
a tattered skeleton,
trapped in a fence of pain.