On Things with Wings and Things That Fly and Those That Do Not

 

October 17 is the anniversary of death of Frederic Chopin, taken from this world by cystic fibrosis or tuberculosis, or another illness, at the age of 39.  Among geniuses who died young, Chopin was the oldest - Mozart was only 35 and John Keats only 25 when they left this valley of tears.  So, instead of the keyboard covered with blood from coughing his lungs out, or the feverish eyes of one that cannot lift his head from the pillow of the sick-bed, I thought of what I love and what is up above, in the sky. 

The poem turned into a rant against the enemies of humanity that forgot their souls and keep harming all living beings because of greed. Angels and aliens make a brief appearance at the end - as they should.  This is not a poem for publication in a journal, too long and too disjointed. Every editor would make me work on it. But I like it just the way it is. A rant. 

ALL THINGS IN THE SKY

I like everything that flies, not just creatures with wings – 

birds, butterflies, four-winged dragonflies, kites, hot-air balloons, 

and delicate soap bubbles. No, that’s not true. I do not like 

helicopters, especially those circling above my house 

with a spotlight on some hapless dude, trying to outrun the police.

And I do not like mosquitoes – even the Dalai Lama has a problem

with mosquitoes, he said so himself.  Hornets, too. And wasps.

They bite. Though hornets sound like hummingbirds, or rather

hummingbirds like hornets – the tiny jewels on wings, sparkling 

ruby and emerald in the air, buzz around as if announcing the danger 

of the hornet’s wings. I was once bitten by a hornet, boy, it hurts. 

I should not forget those 21 stings of honeybees in my head,

I was just seven. After I ran home screaming, the room was spinning 

above me, while distorted faces called out to me with concern.  

I was falling into unconsciousness, into dreams  – reeling from 

my first betrayal. My brother ran away from the bees that escaped 

their hive with a new queen. He left me to the mercy of bees. 

Though sick for a week, with a head swelled into a puppet, I still love 

honey. Golden clover, linden, dark buckwheat honey. I can tell if the bees 

were fed sugar water or actually brought nectar from the fields. 

I revel in the buzzing of bees in my crape myrtle tree. They work so hard  

among bunches of tiny pink blooms. The rich soundtrack of my childhood 

summers under that three-hundred-year-old linden tree with two trunks

split into a V for Victory in the courtyard of my grandma’s house. 

I really, truly love honeybees, the makers of fragrant, translucent honey. 

Did you know that honey found in a pharaoh’s tomb was still edible? 

After three thousand years? And how about honey-wax for candles

and propolis for wounds? And all the orchards of the world with 

their honeybees working so hard to give us fruit? A humble honeybee 

makes a spoonful of honey. Yet, it is the benefactor, the savior of humanity. 

So why do they, those greedy pigs of people who do not love 

things with wings, try to poison everything that grows and flies 

with their chemically manufactured toxins? They replaced glyphosate 

in Roundup with even more toxic diquat dibromide, fluazifop-P-butyl, 

triclopyr, and imazapi. Diquat, banned in Europe, flows freely in America 

to poison weeds and us and our honeybees and our winged friends.

Can they also poison cherubim and seraphim with six wings 

folding and unfolding above their multitude of eyes? I bet they’d try.

Did those greedy pigs of people that disregard all life forget that they 

are seen, always seen, by the myriads of eyes and that the account of their 

wicked deeds is constantly being written in their own book of reckoning? 

Maybe, but I did not. So, I do not poison my garden. No, not because of fear.

No, I admire most things that fly. Birds that sweetly sing for me in the morning. 

Red-tailed hawks with outstretched wings, that call each other up high. 

Oh, I forgot to mention clouds, planes, and alien starships. I love looking down

from the sky on the minuscule mountains, silver ribbons of rivers, and weird

shapes of clouds. The ocean of white beneath the sapphire infinity and bright 

yellow diamond of the sun. I feel heavenly in this heaven of mine, made by 

geniuses of technology. Gravity challenged by brave men in the cockpit.

Glorious! I was 14 when I first flew in a plane. Yes, the seats are too 

tight, the neighbors too obnoxious and I always catch a cold or flu. But, still, 

Glorious. So, planes are good and beautiful and true. How about alien

starships? Someone said they cloak themselves in  thick lenticular clouds

parked in one spot for hours, observing us from above. Yes, I’m a bit 

ambivalent about aliens. Let’s talk about them another time, shall we? 

17 October 2025

NOTES: 

All photos by Maja Trochimczyk, from her home and garden in Sunland (pomegranate, grapefruit, and the egret walking down the street looking for lizards to catch), Oxnard Beach (dolphin kite), Big Tujunga Canyon (kite and clouds), plane (on the way to Albuquerque, NM and to Warsaw, Poland), Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, 2025, and the Dali Museum in Paris.

"Thing with wings" echoes Emily Dickinson's "thing with feathers" ("Hope"), while the cherubim and seraphim with multiple eyes come from the vision of Ezekiel. These are more properly called "ophanim" but the other two names are better known and I'm particularly friendly with six-winged spiritual protectors of humanity and myself.  Salvadore Dali's sculpture of eyes upon eyes, all blue, is not of the angel but reminded me of the idea, so there it is.  I do not recall where the story of lenticular clouds being cloaked alien starships come from, but it is a good one, so here it is...