Where?

We climb so high
eager souls knowing
the only way down is up,
backwards
like corporate ladders we climb,
some choosing the miles high in the sky
buildings that make us so small
as we stare up into the clouds
knowing that somewhere up there
the ants are busy
scurrying around
moving and shaking
through necessity or need.
Where has the laughter gone?
I gaze at images expecting to see
what was put in the mind as a child,
that only the young can have fun
laughing and being
the innocence always kept as long as it could
for as we grew up
did we fear the falling down part?
Yet I see the faces
etched in smiles and joy
so many years ago it seems
when people had dreams
and the desire to stay young forever,
going up to come down
as the wind broke into our faces
away we went
spinning and sliding and free
to just be
but times have come
and so much has changed
with the onset of fear replacing
the freedom to let go,
to hear the sound of laughter on air
and the timid voice saying please,
can we go again, just once more?
Or a knock at the door
and a trick or treat heard from beyond
by a single child watched
by the horde at the end of the driveway,
on alert
lest the bogey man comes calling on the other side.

I was looking at pictures of a slide at Coney Island? must have been back in the day due to the dress, and there were so many images and I was taken aback to see that all of the shots I saw, were of adults having fun. When did we stop? Halloween saw 7 trick or treaters. When I was a child back in my old hometown, we would have to go out and buy more candy as we would go through the 300 pieces of chocolates bought for the night, 300! The times they are a’changing…..sigh.

Growing wings

When we were small
tiny in a too large world
bits of fluff clinging like moss
to our new selves,
comparisons were often made as we stood
teeter tottering through the maze
of learning of our existence.
We were told someday
we would fly high if we tried
but to take our time
the world would wait and we needed to learn more,
follow more,
before we could be more.
I believed we could
be like those I saw on quiet summer mornings
meandering on breezes
lost in thought
cascading in endless flight-
and I was there too
in my mind,
the child’s eye sees so much more
than credit is ever given
from different perspectives,
small yet still
so very large in scope.
As our feathers grew,
we were trained in manners
and what was proper and what we couldn’t
shouldn’t do
and then we became dry,
our tiny feathers brittle with non use
and we hid in corners flapping them
wishing them to grow faster
to carry us away
where our dreams somehow lay
beyond the concrete and darkness
we knew there was light,
for we saw it in the eyes of others
the fine multi colored flocks who held laughter
and a shine in their eyes,
for they were taught
yet ignored the lesson,
instead jumping off ledges to strengthen
their wings and feathers full and beautiful to see.
We watched them in awe,
knowing there was a truth in there somewhere,
and knowing that what we were taught
had somehow turned into something so wrong,
that there was a world out there,
with many species of us,
shapes, colors and sizes
and so we stood on our shelf
and edged our toes to the limit
and closing our eyes falling forward
as the wind rushed into our faces
and we felt the fear of failure,
flapping our wings for a moment in desperation,
we saw that they had grown so long
the magic happened when we paid it no mind,
and we turned them this way and that
catching the breeze that carried us
through the window of perception and beyond,
we had found that in letting go,
we could soar.