The Work of Keeping
They took a square of cloth and gave it a spine...
The Work of Keeping
They took a square of cloth and gave it a spine. Split sticks. Twine drawn tight. A seam already taking strain. A field, then. Stones turned under, roots cut back, hands blistered into agreement. Rise, they said. It would not rise at first. It dragged through dirt, caught bur and thorn, wanted sky, knew weight. Someone ran. Not freedom. Run hard enough and the shape took air. The line paid out slowly. Fingers burned on it— the line a live wire in their grip. Too slack and it dropped. Too tight and it tore. Then it leaned on the string: cloth lifting hard in the wind, sticks alive at the crosspiece, the tail waking behind it. They cheered. Not cloth, not sticks up there— light through the weave, the old shirts gone translucent, the tail drew a long slow signature across the sky. Below, the field was small. The hands were small. The line stayed. A hymn above the field. Round its rough spool the shape above and the hand below. Storms came. The string cut skin. One corner blackened. Rain drove grit through the cloth— the kite a bruised flag in the gale. Some hands let go. Some were made to— fingers pried back, knuckle by knuckle, nothing was said. More string. More knots. More line stripped from a reluctant hand. The knots thickened. By dusk it was hardest: light going flat, wind turning with a cold edge, the kite a dark pulse over the field. No one answered. The wrist did. The pull in it. When it came down, it came down tired: edges thinned, crosspiece working the seam, a tear opening there. They laid it flat. Mended what they could. Left what they could not. Morning came back with wind. Spool in the hand. Line through the thumb.
Luciano Conte, born in Formia, Italy, roots himself in tactile arts like film photography, painting, bread baking, and house building. He writes in order to probe those persistent, buried forces that shape us from beneath the surface. For him, silence is not absence but presence: a pause that resonates the loudest, like the pause in a conversation that carries more weight than words. He speaks his lines aloud while writing, tying rhythm to breath, making language a living, physical act where sound and sense fuse, just as photography captures light and shadow. He urges readers to read his work aloud to unlock layers that silent reading misses, letting the cadence shape the experience in the same way as kneading dough or laying foundation stones, where each gesture is deliberate and consequential.
beautiful, Luciano.
To be honest, Luciano, I have never flown a kite, but have always wanted to know more about them and how far people who love them and can make them fly will go. I crown the effort here, using the words to create the pull and drags, then the flight. When I was 21, 1971, I had the most wonderful experience of arriving in Katmandu Valley, which was all green to the mountain rises, farmland, and water buffalo. I did not plan it, but arrived on National Kite Flying Day. Magical just doesn't do it. It was actually so grounding in the way it spelled out the Napalese people and culture. A hardworking, joyful day for the kites which were all original and homemade. Long tails and bows and the colourful contraptions, all dancing so high, Napalese adults and children running in all directions with twine pulling on them, keeping them down on earth. And lifting us visitors from far away up and up. Thank you for this really wondeful poem. Constance