STAND ON YOUR OWN TWO FEET

 
Pull yourself up

(as we’re all supposed to)

grasping, for support,

whatever furniture comes to hand.

Feel your leverage strengthen

in a newly visible horizon of legs:

four-square chairs, a table, grown-ups.

Tumbles become fewer

and plastic bones will rarely fracture 

in the forest of hardened verticals.

 

Make your entrances matter

(each year is merely a fleeting stage).

From one small step go further –

run, leap, dance – quick then quicker,

only slow when you near the brink

of falling down.

Windows in the sky

are not for climbing through;

even should the breaking waves below

sound like paradise.

 

Just keep going

(old people say this all the time)

and second guess the hazards:

kerbs and slopes, stairs and rugs,

spills, pets, darkness.

Risk grows in likelihood and consequence.

Don’t clutch at old regrets with flailing limbs,

take an outstretched hand.

When you reach that place you can no longer stand

better to have walked there.

 

xii. 2020