Swings in a Park

A seemingly constant fascination for things that are:

If there are nine

Chain seats upon the bar

Then he must swing at every one.

“They are all the same,” I say to him each time

And in between each one, “Nine,

And each precisely copied

As some play yard Plato designed—

A perfect set.”

But, each suspended chair used up, he whines,

And down the line

We go: hand in hand—one through nine.

“The child is father to the man”

(was it Longfellow who understood?)

And he shall come to understand

When time

Has forced the fragile metal of his mind

Into a closing door

That can no more sweep the open sky

In renewing arcs of flailing feet

Than fly,

Nor ever come so close again

As before.

I see one where he knows nine

And demands to know them all.

It’s a bother,

And yet, somewhere, behind

What I’ve become,

I remember chain chairs in the sun

And a man

Who paced me down the line.