The Flight - 02.01.26

If we leave today, will we be able to fly?
We remember. One day, for personal or professional reasons,
For safety or for financial reasons,
Alone, together, one at a time,
We picked up flight and left.
”Things will get better”, we said,
But there was a shortage of food
And an abundance of sorrow.
And the heart had to adapt.

If we spread our wings, will the wind blow our way,
And take us where we need to go?

Migration is weaved into the fabric of nature,
Of the seasons,
And yet — there’s pain.
And yet — there’s the need to move
And so — we moved.
Against the fearful advice from our families, against currents of thoughts, against all odds,
Uncertain, but looking up.
Because without knowing we knew that
In the sky — in the flight — we would find the answer.

And we fell — and we learned to fall better.
And things got — in fact — better, and our hearts adapted
But also
expanded in ways that we didn’t think possible.

And one day others came, and we set more plates in our table
And room in our homes
And we remade the definition of the word “family”,
of the word “community”.

And we understood
That in the flight we picked up as much as we left,
And that our home is in constant reconstruction,
Built with the memory of our ancestors,
New bricks made from the clay of the communities we create.

And that a part of us will always be looking up
Because without knowing we know that
it’s in the sky — in the flight
Where there’s the questions
And also
Where there’s the answers.

— Julia O. Bianco