Kite Poetics
I have been thinking about kites.πͺ It started a couple of weeks ago when my partner shared a video of me flying a kite. It reminded me of a lost love.
Dedicated to Refaat Alareer. Author, Poet, Editor, Translator, lover of kites.
Dear reader,
I have been thinking about kites.πͺ
It started a couple of weeks ago when my partner shared a video of me flying a kite. It reminded me of a lost love.
One of the things I love about flying kites is liftoff, the moment when the kite starts flying itself, rising above the logic of gravity alone. In the right conditions, flying a kite πͺ is easy. On other days, you have to run, you have to work to coax the kite into the sky, persuade it that maybe, maybe, it's time to soar.
I like that kites fly still holding reference to the ground. There is no kite without the string, the tether. The kite needs tension to lift.
The wind, also, is important. When you fly kites πͺ, you must learn to read the sky. You must know what conditions your kite needs to fly.
My mother says that as a baby, I giggled whenever it was windy out. She thought I liked watching the trees move in the air, the feeling of the breeze on my face. I do have many memories of flying kites in the big open field at Como Park. I later cultivated an obsession with weather goddesses (and superheros) in my childhood. I wanted the power to start up a storm. I would begin with the wind.
For a period of time, I even addressed my journal every day "Dear Tris". Tris was the name of a redhead weather mage in a fantasy series I had read. The obsession with weather, wind, and kites πͺ continues to this day. If only I could read the air.
When I moved to Chicago in my twenties, living in a 19th floor apartment close to Lake Michigan, I quickly realized it was always windy in the afternoon. There was a predictable time of day when things shifted. I went out and got a kite. A list of places I remember flying kites πͺ in Chicago:
Palmisano Park
Harrison Park
Midway Plaisance
Northerly Island
31st and 39th beaches
Promontory Point
Rainbow Beach
This month, I have not flown any kites. I have not flown kites anytime this year. And yet, they have appeared. A list of kites:
πͺ The video my partner shared (GIF-ified above)
πͺ A memory of flying a butterfly kite by the lake on sunny summer day
πͺ News from Gaza that a Palestinian writer named Refaat Alareer was killed by the Israeli military and wrote a poem before his death called "If I must die". The poem features kites.
And now let's talk about that poem. Put your glasses on. I will guide you. For context, Refaat initially posted the poem on his blog in 2011.
If I must die,
This is the beginning of a poem by Refaat Alareer. It sounds like a goodbye, but not a willing one.
you must live
to tell my story
The wish of writer, a storyteller, a teacher.
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
Refaat sounds practical. He knows how to make a kite. He posted this poem alongside pictures of kites πͺ. One image shows a kite with a Palestinian flag. The other is a photo of children flying kites, most are handmade. This is from an event in 2009 where thousands of children in Gaza flew kites on the beach.
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blazeβ
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himselfβ
Last week, Refaat was killed in an Israeli air strike alongside six family members, including four children. Like many missiles dropped, flung, and targeted by the Israeli military (with American funding) in Gaza, the strike attacked an entire family.
On November 1st 2023, one month earlier, Refaat already pinned this poem to his social media. What was he thinking about? The same day, he wrote about bombardments in Gaza, including an attack on the line of people waiting for bread in his neighborhood. He posted several videos of bombs exploding. He wrote about the death of his student Ashwaq. This, I imagine, was his state of mind.
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
Reading Refaat's poem today, I thought about the idea of a kite lovingly dedicated to a person that was killed.
This reminded me of another time I flew kites that I had forgotten about. In 2015, an artist named Amitis Motevalli worked on a project called 'THIS IS HOW THE MOON DIED' in Chicago.
The intent was to draw attention to police killings in Illinois. To do this, the artist made a series of colorful kites. Each kite was dedicated to one person killed by police. In the air, you saw the face of that person stenciled alongside their name looking down on you. A blog post from Mariame Kaba has more discussion of the intent. I am not surprised to see now that the title of the project comes from a Mahmoud Darwish poem. This is one of the Palestinian poets from my last letter to you. Of course, it is all connected.
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale
There is a line (a string, a tether, a tail) here. Both projects use kites πͺ. Both projects use a childhood toy to talk about violence and grief. Both projects deal with militarized violence (we know that U.S. police departments and the IDF train together). There is both heaviness and lift here. There is a commitment to action and visibility, which brings to mind how a kite can be seen in the sky clearly by someone blocks away. What might these kites communicate, what does it mean when a memorial takes flight, what message does it send?
People who love kites πͺ, love them for a lifetime and beyond. I think a love like this doesn't go away. This means I might know something about Refaat, something personal, something that he told me directly in this poem.
It didn't take long to do more research...
Did you know I spent half my childhood in Shujaiya, Gaza flying kites? (and the other half throwing stones at Israeli military jeeps πͺβπΎ). I literally won best kite ΩΩ Ψ§ΩΨΨ§Ψ±Ψ© and invented a kite π€π€. Oh, I cherish the good ol' days already!
β Refaat in Gaza π΅πΈ (@itranslate123) May 13, 2021
Yes, here it is. Refaat Alareer loved to fly kites πͺ. Of course he did. May he rest in poetry.
HANA
Ways to take action this week if you need ideas:
Read more of Refaat Alareer's work
His 2022 essay "Gaza Asks: When Shall This Pass?" from In Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire.
His 2021 essay titled "My Child Asks, βCan Israel Destroy Our Building if the Power Is Out?β"
His TEDxShujaiya talk Stories Make Us
Read some stories from the organization he co-founded - We are Not Numbers
Listen to recent Movement Memos podcast episode with Rana Barakat.
Post about Palestine on your social media, talk to your friends and family, attend public actions. Continue to make this genocide visible.
In the United States - call the local offices both of your senators if they aren't on this list. Here is a script.