When you tread lightly off the path, as a dainty footed deer, but when you know you are all donkey. And the wild flowers you bowed down to just moments before --the Lupin you cupped in your hands-- now bow for you. You know you are not worthy. Nobody is, but maybe the dear. Yet you ache to be that kid again. The one that swings his legs before him, rather than lifting his knees. You don't remember the last time you stubbed your toe and think you might miss it. You want to rattle down this hillside like the toboggan you should have bailed from you want to fall in love with gravity again, but your notch in the door way is too far from the floor. A painful romance however deep. You don't want to have to worry your weight and the weight of the world. But you know now... that you do not tread lightly.
The petal in the kiddy pool is nothing more than a petal in a kiddy pool. And it doesn't have to be more, to take pause, to take comfort in the knowing that you are its witness and thus, time is not passing you by, or rather dragging you along its rapid course of waiting and racing. It doesn’t have to be more, to hold close the knowing that there are moments and moments to come. It doesn't have to be more, to praise your eyes that see the light pass through the petal, to praise the skin that feels the summer cross over your shoulders and the hose water cool your toes, to praise your ears that hear the baby’s squeals of delight as he shreds apart the poppy and puts the petals in the pool. It doesn't have to be more to understand all his destruction is a part of his making. It doesn't have to be more to realize he has yet to be told how to take on the world so all he knows is how to take it in. The petal in the kiddy pool is nothing more than a reminder of how to take in the world.
