Somber clouds

I walk uphill bearing the weight of a bicycle

With tyres dragging flat onto the rough road

My breath shallow and in intervals accompany

My footfalls which seem heavier by the minute.

It's dusk, with dark clouds out to shadow the little bit of light

Making it's way to reach the ground I walk

I look about at the tall trees surrounding my path..

Up ahead I see a brightly colored daycare with dimly lit passages

I did find it amusing, how the lights somber the supposedly happy place.

Parents who needed to work, could not afford to take care themselves, relied on these

To care for their young dears, trusting the stranger completely

Without a choice mostly.

Would I have if I had to? I travelled back two decades where I was an elephant.

The gestation had felt like two years...

After those initial 4, when I opted for a prep school, she had said, " because he is here, you put me in school?"

Was that true? Or because it was the age to? I still don't know...

They were coming to the parking lot, the cars, one by one, the toddlers were being handed over, one by one.

Some happy to get home, few exhausted by the endless day, some appeared lost

What goes on in those sponges, I want to know. Want to feel .

I have to turn left ahead and lose sight of the parking lot of the bright building, of the playground beside it...

Involuntarily I turn one last time, as if in hopes to see something that I may have missed

Sure enough then, I do

A toddler, on the earth. Who had fallen deliberately, in protest or joy, not sure

Uninhibited and free...rolling and dirtying the clothes,

The earth, the little dried grass, the pebbles ...all coating a layer

On it's hands, jacket, on it's shoes, pants...

The father stares defeated.

It doesn't matter, I smile to myself, my breath feeling stable... steadying by the minute now.

I lug the flat tyres and look up at the dark clouds that loom...

I turn left on top of the hill.