"First Flight"

19 March 2016: Our students represented Shepherd University quite well today at the West Virginia Undergraduate English Symposium. All six gave terrific presentations. One of them won the prize for best written essay (one of my students, in fact) and another won for best presentation. The symposium itself was interesting and congenial--just a great experience for everyone involved.

One of the highlights was the keynote address given by Marc Harshman, West Virginia's Poet Laureate. His talk was moving, inspiring, and delightful. He shared this poem by Louise McNeill, which you just need to read. It reminded me of this moment when was about seven, running down the road on a summer's day, convinced that my new sneakers made me run faster than any car. (Probably the last time I ever thought of myself as fast!) It was, like this poem suggests, magical.

Once when I was little and played on the hill,
One wondrous evening, I dream of it still– 
Mom called me to dinner, impatient, I knew– 
So I lifted my arms up and flapped them and flew.

I lifted my arms up and flapped them, and lo!
I was flying as fast as my short legs could go.
The hill swirled beneath me, all foggy and green;
I lit by the yard fence, and no one had seen.

I told them at dinner, I said, “I can fly.”
They laughed, not believing. I started to cry
And ran from the table, and sobbed, “It is true– 
You need not believe me; I flapped and I flew.”

I told them next morning, I told them again– 
For years I kept telling; they laughed and I ran– 
No one would believe me; I ceased then to tell;
But still I remember, remember it well– 

One soft summer evening up there on the knoll,
Before life had harried the reach of my soul,
I stood there in twilight, in childlight, and dew– 
And I lifted my arms up and flapped them and flew!