I swear they are playing A small flock of small brown birds Flits from bending stem to bending stem Grasses bowing slightly Springing down when they land And then up as they soon depart. And if beaks could break a smile The true story might be told. It is a time of richness A time of many seeds and In this moment of joy They eat fully And fly freely.
I can still run when I want to If I want to Although nearing age 66 I mostly plod Moving slower Incrementally, entropically With a bit less enthusiasm for
sprinting Into oblivion Or even rising to new challenges Or the same old ones (The mere challenge of rising
becoming More and more apparent) That horizon seems to be moving
in my direction At its steady pace… Maybe I need to check my dipstick See what level my vital fluids
are at Perhaps I’m down a quart of
testosterone? I’m still in the race At least in my mind I can access that young man Who did life so subtly Effortlessly Painlessly. I can still run, when I want But there is a cost now A different one, and maybe
higher. And do I really want to go that
fast Tempting the wheels to fly off? Or is it better, wiser Just to plod?
You can’t blame them That they are such bearers of bad news (At least by our selfish assessment) Vectoring disease while trying By the powers of nature to do Exactly what we all try to do; Live and survive Propagate and pass along Our essence. Born beautiful in their seeming simplicity They take what they need And inadvertently pass along others, Those unclean, They take too Our lifeblood becomes theirs and We are compromised For their moment of life. We are stung so that they may grow... We all take But just some of us know The apparent outcome.
We learn to make the crane Step by step We fold the blank paper Which has no meaning save For its potential We fold, and shape and give it Our energy Our love And fold and fold and fold again And there it is at last As it always had been The crane which I learned to make And its peace Which I am learning to make as well.