100 Poems For The Soul

Where Are You Running?

  Where are you running, child,
You who follows the beaten road
With your speed and strength and precision
You who looks so proud and free
Who watches the sky
The earth flys by under your feet too fast

Take care, child
Don't fall as you run down that road
Keep the dust under those sturdy feet
Or it will rise up and catch you
You who follows the wind
The earth will take you back like
It took me

For once I was you, child
Running the path ahead of the rest
Proud and strong and skilled
But I forgot myself somewhere along that road
And the road rose up and caught me
So I fell, and the rest passed over me, by me
And as I lay I learned
And forgot the sky

Because, child
I saw that the sky is beautiful and holy
It is nice to look at
But you can run up the tallest mountain and
Still, the sky is too far away to reach.
I learned instead as I lay
That the earth
That which I had forgotton, something to tread
No more
Was as beautiful as the sky and
Attainable
It called to me and I came willingly

No more, child
Do I run that path of yours, of theirs
I am no longer strong and young
Instead I wander slowly, silently
Observing instead of being observed
And watching the earth always in its
Plants and trees and life, that which I can see and
Touch and hold or watch from a heartbeat
A breath away
I have seen birth, life, and death once I stopped running and began to wander paths never walked before by a mortal
And I give the sky no more than a passing observance now
For the earth is my home in which I wander now
And when I die I shall have my chance
To wander the sky

Tell me now, child
Where are you running?