Your life is a path
with no beginning,
a living thing
inserted into
the middle of other people's time.
My parents remember years
before there was me,
and I in turn recall
the days before my two.
Once the seasons crash upon each other,
our span loses self-significance
except as the ripple upon which
we flowed into the sea.
Our cycle bonds with others'
who preceded us,
who will follow us.
I fit into the zeniths and nadirs of time.
I fit into the Marches and Octobers.
Parents, grandparents, ancestors, children--
I fit into that pattern too.
Their moments have gone
or are yet to be
and will flow along into this one--
like seasons, like waves, like generations,
like light.
EPIPHANY
I was a rock-kickin' kid once too,
bored on a summer day
itchin' to play something "fun"--
The boundaries of the world
spilled out of me,
like liquid gravity sticking on those I knew.
Sometimes boredom knew no edges.
I used to lie under a leafy tree,
too hot to play
but keen for the perfect offer--
a baseball game, a swimming pool.
They say the world shrinks,
but it really expands
when the borders stretch beyond
your tendency to be bored.
Then you realize that mom and dad
were rock-kickin' kids once too,
and the first time you know,
it tickles you with gentle surprise.
So just for fun,
perhaps tenderly,
you walk down the street
and kick a rock forward,
noting its erratic path,
and you heel the rock back,
and awakened now,
you keep on walking.
Copyright 2007 Charlotte Browneyes
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