'If you could have wings would you want them?
I don’t know.
I mean, if you could use them to fly, would you want them?
Yes, if I could fly.
But they would be really big.
How big?
They might brush against your knees as you walked, or be bigger than some doorways.
And what if you couldn’t ever take them off?
I still would want them.
If you couldn’t take them off, even if you were going somewhere, or going to bed, or eating at a table, or you wanted to pick someone up, you could never take them off?
Yes, I would. I would still want them.
Because you could fly?
Yes, because of the flying.
And if they were heavy, or even if no one else had them, and even if your children and their children didn’t have them?
Yes, I think so.
But you would still have arms and hands and legs, and you could still speak, but you had wings, too. You would want the wings, too?
Yes, I would want the wings, too.
And when you were walking around, people would stare at you, and they wouldn’t necessarily understand that you could fly?
I understand. I understand that they wouldn’t understand.
Or if people thought they meant something, something they didn’t really mean?
I would know what the wings were for.
And if you had them, forever—the forever, I mean, that is your life, you would still want them?
Yes, I would want them. I would take them, so long as I could fly.
that I might fly away
that I might fly away where the ships
that I might fly away where the ships of pine wood pass between the dark cliffs'
Susan Stewart (2003), Columbarium. London & Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, p.100/101
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