Youth

The puckered lips of a swift-fingered breeze,

the jingle and jangle of mom’s lost car keys

accompany me as my oars and my anchor

through the rivers of cars.

Of trucks and machines and gas-guzzling tigers

crouching as though they could 

pounce to the road

and be gone with a wink and a whistle.

 

Burrowed under the borrowed shade,

tucked in the bosom of Summer’s slow fade

are the figures of those who sit waiting.

Keen and expectant and 

perched as though 

they are newborn birds

to be launched into the skies 

and experience unknown for the very first time.

 

Dimples and freckles and bright pock-marked faces are

ageless and ancient, leaving years without traces.

They make friends with the caterpillars,

scare off the snakes

and inhabit such creatures 

until their voices do make 

the lilt of the butterflies,

the scuttles of  mice,

and the trill of a minstrel bird whistling through life

 

Sun-soaked and simmering up on Playground Hill

we wonder and wander, as their minds always will.

They tremble with bounty,

bursting with trepidation 

until they are no longer children 

but akin to the

rosy-cheeked,

puffy-lipped 

cherubs of old.

Swaddled in dandelions and nourished with youth.

 

Unanswered questions meet outlandish answers

thanks to imaginations brimming with astronauts and dancers.

In their mind’s eyes they see

the great vastness of life,

the simple pleasure of the moment giggling in their face,

and the untainted essence of 

what it means to be free.

Coddled and cultured by the rainbows they dream.

 

As the sun starts to sink and the fireflies whisper,

the sizzling air becomes thinner and crisper.

They duck through the dusk,

amock in the shadows

and prancing about 

in the newfound darkness 

as though they’re leaping through portals

to worlds beyond immeasurable comprehension.

 

I never saw until now the untamed ease of a child,

the way the earth seemed to beam when one of them smiled.

But now,

surrounded by thumping feet

and cornered by raucous singing

I wonder if I was ever this free.

There’s a child in me,

that much I know to be true,

and I yearn to see what the little imp wants to do.