Taking Flight

At the pool he watches his mother, as she instructs the "big kids", perfecting their stroke or overcoming their fears, they all get the attention they need. When the schoolchildren leave and the noise dies down, they have the water, now like a mirror, all to themselves. She takes him and teaches him the breaststroke, how to tread water or to just float. Afterwards, at the cafeteria, they have hot chocolate and she tells him how she almost made the Olympic team.

Riding across town on the back of her bicycle, they pass the heliport. "Mamma, mamma, a helicopter" the boy yells. She stops and patiently waits with him to watch it take off. As she steps back on the bike and starts peddling, his helicopter floats out of sight . . .

spring breeze —
a whiff of freesias
through my hair

Ted van Zutphen grew up in the Netherlands, lives and has raised a family in the USA. He has observed life through the windshield of a bus for 32 years. Since his retirement last year he studies and writes haiku and other Japanese short form poetry.