People in the world took care of me today

Much older than the others
I trudge off to school.

And yet somehow
as a student
I become childlike.

On the train, some lady
zipped my backpack up.

I stood there in my mittens
absorbing the tug
of some stranger’s
motherly touch.

And I ran for the bus
and then missed it
but caught it-

Some stranger took pity-
how narrow her miss!-

and a door
that had closed
opened back up.

And the trees
that I’ve loved
for the bloom
of their youth-

I loved them today
for their browns
and their reds;

their autumns
worth caring for too.

–Elizabeth Fitterer
November 2019