From my small patch of sunlit porch
i watch the children play.
They laugh and sing.
They throw and catch a ball
-eternity bouncing back and forth
between them.
I smile at them, rejoicing
in this traveling wholeness i observe,
this total exclusion of winners and of losers,
in the fading rays of summer.
I want to walk the steps from porch to street
and join them in their play,
but my feet are heavy, my heart is old.
They are innocent and i am not.