Tag

There is no time. The sun hangs.
Double-knotted sneakers etch
rivers and tributaries
into the boys' zigzag trail.

They escape behind the school
as parking lots empty, and
flee to the meadow to play.
Here, the poppies are taller.

Even the towering elms
and sycamore horizon,
is hidden. Their boughs are dark
this time of day, suggesting.

But they would rather play, run
by superfluous bridges
of neat cut pine, stripped, treated,
and closely latched together.

Soon the meadow, the poppies,
the wild daisies, the long necked
bells, and bright chrysanthemums
will trim back, and everything

will be overtaken by
the whiteness of winter storms,
and then winter’s muddy melt
So each day they keep running.

Each day a little faster
underneath the afternoon
sun as morning lessons cling
like a muddy step, linger,

permeate double-knotted
sneakers, before they catch up.

'Tag' is now a poem that embodies the spirit of the place I originally wrote about. It moves away from indifference, and simply appreciates a simple landscape. The world is spinning, even as the there are protests in Chicago, even as beautiful pigs are slaughtered and people wake up to the sound of trains to smoke an existential cigarette, but boys run through a meadow valuing something greater than complacency. It is my most hopeful poem, my least cynical poem, and coincidentally maybe my best.

If I could go back in time, I'd have a portfolio filled with better poems.