Flying Lessons & I Dream Of Home by Elinor Maycan

Flying Lessons

I used to dream 

I was standing on a little hill 

by my childhood home 

next to my mother 

who was teaching me to fly 

She always went first 

I tried to keep up 

but I usually crash landed 

in the pines, just beyond the hill 

Holding breath from a heavy chest, 

and thrashing, 

until I realize I’m suspended 

cradled by fragrant branches 

I return to the hill, alone 

looking towards the pines 

waiting for an exceptional gust 

to catapult me 

in my mother’s direction 

Perhaps later, 

I’ll find the trails 

below the canopy 

and walk 

letting a small brown bird 

catch my eye 

I dream of a home 

where I can sit on the front porch 

and see nothing but trees and stars, 

hear nothing but the nearby stream, 

the screech of a barn owl. 

I’ve stood on a mountain 

that was once the shortest in the range. 

They blasted the tops off her sisters 

and now she’s the only one left 

standing at her full height, 

able to see the devastation 

of a paycheck. 

No matter how long and hard 

I work, 

I could never lay down 

a train track 

or build a library. 

Instead, I ding dong ditch 

my extra zucchini on my neighbor's porch 

and borrow their table saw. 

I plant 

wildflowers, 

some native checkermallow, 

an elderberry bush. 

I leave the logs to rot. 

Meanwhile, I’ll dream about snowy peaks 

and bark that grows over 

the scar where someone carved their name.

Elinor Maycan is a writer located in the Pacific Northwest. Her work appears in orangepeel literary magazine and Candlelight Magazine.