Running Like a Child.

The rain started mid morning. Slow and drizzly
and November cold in October.
The brick steps are covered with leaves
grown slick with the rain, a danger when
you do not pay attention, a fall waiting to happen.

but undeniably photogenic, glistening
as the morning goes on, glistening at first
then, as the rain accumulates, burdened down
like an old man’s life.

At my age, I have too much to think about.
Too much past. Too much history. Too much loss,
Too much imagination, glorious and dangerous. .
Too much love and love lost
and I have come to the place
where I would rather run up the stairs like a child,
heedless and blind to the possibility of falls.

About this poem.

I come from a very measured family. Spontaneousness and high energy feelings were not part of the accepted equation. I have always chaffed at that, and that made me odd man out sometimes. But I never became as free as say… Oscar Wilde and his ilk.

But I think about it.

Tom