In the park in the fall,
I
hold my arms outstretched
as
if I had just awakened from sleep,
though
that happened many years ago.
I
try to touch my toes several times,
always
breathing, always breathing,
but
I can’t reach too far beneath my knees.
It’s
almost time to go home, I think,
or
maybe not quite yet.
I
turn my head to the left
and
see a robin sitting on a branch
that
has lost all but three browning notes
that
once waved a symphony.
I
turn my head to the right
and
see a young mother and her child.
He
is laughing at me, a wrinkled thing,
and
I begin laughing too.
I have become the cliché,
the
old man in the heavy overcoat
on
a bright chilly afternoon
sitting
on a park bench.
“Hello,
little boy. Namaste.”
I
stand and sit three times in a row,
always
breathing, always breathing.
It
is October indeed
and
almost time to go home.
Shadows
reclining on the grass
will
soon stir and whisper and rise,
tall
and dark and definitive,
and
start walking down the concrete path.
It
is October indeed.
It
is almost time to go home.
~William Hammett
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