Get on board
On the bus
On the plane
On the train.
For shame
To have waited so long
Watching your feet grow roots
And shoot further into the floor
And into the earth.
Get on board now
It’s time to go
The waiting has passed.
It’s time to fly
And join the travelers.

Haven’t you left yet?
Haven’t you pulled your feet up out of the mud
Shaken them free of the sucking ground
And moved?
From the outside
It’s all so clear
That movement is all that is required.
But inside
It is more than the mud that keeps him standing there. There are pulls from everywhere.
From gravity
From desire
From history
From heaven
From the liver
From the wrist
Pulled in every direction
You cannot move to them all.

Sometimes growing up is only this
Learning how to give space to he who needs it.
In earlier days, I might have held tight or
Walked along the same path, the very same path
Or rather, the brush and rocks and thorns beside it
Letting you go but not giving you leave
When the time machine dumps me out in front of my younger self,
I’ll quote this line.

A garment
Drenched
Below it
Pools of water
Of effort
A slow drip
wrung from above.