The Restless Gift

The window seduced me in that place, and I was powerless.
Outside, things moved: the flag curved in slo-mo,
The Cottonwood sloughed its wisps sideways
Newly clothed branches waved gently,
Mockingly? No, it’s just what branches do when nudged;
Unlike that place,
Beyond the glass,
Air motivated, pushed, stirred.
Things should move.

My 12 year old mind did, faster than the pace of the one talking
In that place,
Already moved ahead, beyond,
Answer anticipated,
All rabbit trails entertained at the least provocation, it ran
And ran, and ran.

Things should move. My knee did, constantly running in place,
In that place,
Like Wiley Coyote in the air over a cavern,
Bounced with an tornado of energy, sprung up and down with
A message that legs are for locomotion,
Jiggled a protest that mine did not fit
Under the desk anyway;
Instead I straddled it,
Like a too-old child on a plastic pony who realizes this
Should be the last time around forever.

My hands moved too, drumming what I imagined was an exotic beat
Which I knew everyone would appreciate, an incessant thumping with my special, thumb - middle finger combo that drove
Everyone to wish me gone from that place,
Gone through the window.

And that’s where I have been,
Through the window now for some time, running;
For years I have felt on my face what moves the branches, have run till my legs
Are bounceless. I have clambered over walls
Up ladders, through contests, have waded in the morass of
Daily mud.
I have moved, because that is what I do,
Who I am
In my own place.

How very strange that now in my middle days
The manic metronome is quieted. I gaze up at the window from
Below, see the yellow lights, the stately books resting in rows and feel moved
To climb back in,
Feel sure that I see movement
Yes, ideas waving gently,
In that place,
Mockingly? No, perhaps I didn’t know,
It is what ideas do.

You have given me restlessness, Still One,
My whole life through.
It has kept me from dissolving in place. It has beckoned through windows,
Called me to discomfort, and called me to quiet.
Here in the middle,
With legs that have found they fit under new desks,
Still I admit,
I see a pond at peace out the window, and my heart
Still hopes for a ripple.