Running

child at
play, all ribby and
smooth-limbed; you’ll not recall
today yet it will be
mine to linger on some fall
afternoon when I am
seated in a chair by a window. It
will die with me,
unrepeated, these foolish few minutes

running

through the sprinkler
with the
new cut grass sticking to
your pink and flashing feet;

running

with your sister in the
heavy heat as the water
falls in fountains drops,
silver drops, a cool
curtain on your children
skins; and I, feeling
childlike, too, in the falling
evening picked you
squealing under arm and
dashed through the water,
too, you two, smiling,
soaking, whooping,

running

in the fading sunlight
under ash trees rattled
by a hot south wind.
And then it’s gone,
this moment, hustled off
to bed to leave me
later standing at the
window watching your
ghosts dance upon the lawn –