Girl With Umbrella
(Alameda, CA)






Driving down Bay Street
I look up from my local road map,
and there she is.  She stops me there,
this little girl
dancing in the street.

Dancing, under an arc of rainbow
the garden hose makes,
dancing and skipping in a balancing act
atop her invisible high wire,
teetering, red umbrella turned inside out
held high above her head,
its dog-eared spokes dripping wildly with this,
this of which she was born into, to be a child,
all glee under an arch of water, ecstatic
in the sheer abandon of what children must be doing
all over the world at fire hydrants wrenched open
or under downpours of rain, waterfalls upon them,
eyes squinting and smiling, steps skittish
and impish, faces tilted upward
toward the sun.

When I stop for her, she looks at me,
then head bent, closes her eyes, backs away,
and in a little curtsy motions me to pass by,
to pass through, both of us now
part of the same
small moment of poetry.

 

(Originally appeared in Runes, Gateway Issue)









E-mail: Andrena

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