Sitting in my customary place outside in the sunshine in the cafe area of the swimming pool that I go to for my morning swim, my chosen table gives me a view of everybody taking their drinks.
There are not that many people there in the early morning, but as the school holidays have started here in Catalonia, there is a steady stream of parents dropping off their children at the Sports Centre for the 'activities' that will keep their kids occupied for the entire day - with meals provided: I've seen the price list and it is good value childcare with healthy exercise thrown in!
Today was the first Monday of the holidays and there were more people than usual so that the tranquility of my 'writing' area was broken by children in various stages of development bein led away by the Tecnics to start their sports.
Apart from one small boy who was vocally unenthusiastic about being left in the centre, most of the kids were keen and some were almost endearing as they marched about clutching racquets that were almost as tall as they were.
But two children caught my eye, a pretty little girl with long flowing hair and her smaller and very much younger brother. She had an excess of energy and positively swooped around the place, and she was quick on her feet - which was the starting point of the poem.
My mother used to swear that, when I was very young, as soon as I could move, I did. Whether it was crawling or walking, I was capable of tangential exploration in an instant. Eventually my parents invested in reins and were so able to contain my infantile wanderlust.
It was the speed of the girl and the realization that she could be somewhere else, anywhere else in seconds that brought back my mother's words and, of course, my mother's fear of my getting lost.
Children do get lost of course, both literally and figuratively, and not only when they are children. How do parents cope with those,
Small child running
“I had to watch you all the time.
A second? You were gone!”
That leitmotiv of memory recalled,
my mother’s words, repeated chorus-like
throughout my life
as I grew up,
and grew away,
came back to me as
who knows her age?
- but very young.
Her brother barely out of totter-walk
(and flat-cap-headed
looked a dwarfish drunk)
as smooth agility is almost,
just not yet, within his reach.
His sister moves through air
as if like water, thin,
impeding nothing, giving grace
to her loose liquid stretch.
And she has speed!
She weaves her brother round,
and runs a path as random as her will.
Few seconds pass,
and she is half-a-care away.
Some seconds more
and she could be
beyond our sight.
The gate is open.
There’s a busy road.
Eye-contact pleasantries with friends
is time enough for her to vanish
from her mother’s sight
to the indifferent world,
where predatory cars and Men
will stop her run.
The energy that stretches,
snaps, the apron strings,
that drags the radii
to vast circumferences
beyond parental care
must be a death of sorts.
For whom?
Flesh of my flesh.
I think of bees:
the sting, the pain, the end.
