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
