Little Boy

Run to the mountain, the pond, to Walden: run on two-year old legs that crouch in the sand as we laugh and scoop sand-buckets for sand castles. Run fast before time steals, shifts in my mind's eye.

Run to the mountain, the pond, to Walden: your blond hair swipes your brow; you're taller now, as we laugh and scoop sand-buckets for sand castles, and build a fort to be safe from the fast-swooping tide. Here we are safe, at Walden, a pond: no dark tide laps your dreams, engulfs our mountain landform of valleys, rivulets and moat. Run fast, fast before time steals, shifts in my mind's eye.

Run to the mountain, the pond, to Walden: years ago, we worked out our problems and crouched on too-tall legs as we laughed and scooped sand-buckets for sand castles, building dreams I worried might never be. Run fast, fast, fast before time steals, shifts again in my mind's eye.

Last year I let you go as a dandelion to the wind: a zillion, tiny follicles, hair-breath images of you I breathed to freedom, to your never-never land of college.

Run to the mountain, the pond, to Walden: come back now and run quickly, so very, very quickly on sturdy, strong legs that will crouch in the sand as we laugh and scoop sand-buckets for sand castles, before time steals again, shifts in my mind's eye: this time, it's childhood's last hurrah, and we cry one last time  - before time becomes vapor, a memory of all we've lived through and disappears forever, wending upward into the night sky.