a poem

A family crossed the quad on a warm spring Sunday at UNC-CH: two boys, a mother, a father

A reflection:

I was once a toddler,

running, struggling to keep up,

my hand out stretched

reaching for the safety and assurance

of being led,

of slowing you down.

I grew.

At five, I ran,

charged ahead to find a world not

found by second-hand experience or

truth. I and my imagination were

Creator, Author:

I was God.

Then came physics and gravity

and experience and understood

insignificance, ignorance, and embarrassment…

I rejected

denied

escaped

embraced skepticism as

the most efficient destructive

tool,

until the scaffolding shook and

I was forced to cling

to something

or ____

So that now I feel dumb,

tormented by simplicity

—by that simplicity which we all always know—

tap-dancing

tip-of-the-tongue

elusive to that singular embrace which could end

this absurdity.