Sunday Flying

Sometimes after the flight show when my father

flew in formation with the other pilots,

diving and somersaulting in his Cessna,

he took us up. The crowd was driving off,

the windsocks disappeared. We flew above

the empty air strip, past the silver hangar,

the ballpark, then the bridge, beyond the school;

and then, if there was fuel enough, we flew

to Hidden Lake where, just below us, Grandpa

was fishing in his rowboat, looking up,

waving his hat, and Grandma hurried out,

wearing her yellow apron. Oh, if only

we could go down and fish for perch with Grandpa!

But it was nearly sunset, and we flew

back over woods and highways toward the town,

and finally there we were above our block,

our house, my Kool-Aid stand, my brother's blue

two-wheeler in the drive. How small it was—

how strange it seemed to look down on your life

from somewhere else. And suddenly I was sick

with loneliness. But we were all together:

my brother with my father up in front,

Mother beside me in the back. And yet

we must be small from there: our empty yard,

the Thompsons on their porch, the Barton's Airedale

trying to climb the fence, and Mother's clothesline,

my sweater hung to dry. Just then, if I had seen

myself on the swing set, I would not have been surprised.

Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2016 by Patricia Hooper, “Sunday Flying,” from Separate Flights, (University of Tampa Press,2016). Poem reprinted by permission of Patricia Hooper and the publisher.