"Nested"

In this post I recount from my childhood how one of my model planes got loose in Prospect Park. It flew away. Disappeared. I had supposed that it’s flying still decades later. By now over China or Tibet.

Should have put a message in it.


However I think that my birthday gift from dear aunt Agnes ran out of gas, and eventually crashed into tree top. Where for all these years it has served as a nest for birds.


Wonderful thought that.


I like this idea better than the “Flyin...g Dutchman” model bi-plane. There’s a story or short video in this. A tale that begins where mine ends.

The cord snaps, and we see my 12 year old self receding away as the plane begins it’s new life. The model Royal Flying Corps SE-5 flies above, and past Prospect park. Summer tail winds add lift, and mileage. It soars above the city, over the Brooklyn Bridge, over Chinatown, and Greenwich Village, past Times Square.

The prop sputters, and fails, but the warm updrafts from the city keep her going. She’s gliding on course for Central Park. Prospect’s more famous sister. She Skims 51st street, past Columbus Circle, over the Sheep Meadow she goes. Till at last just past Bethesda Fountain my little plane slips into, and is entangled in the upper branches of an old oak.

Here begins her decades of service as a cozy nest for generations of blue jays, robins, and sparrows.

Stay tuned.