We used to be small, with many a great care
taking cover from comrades, waiting to give chase
Seeking the monsters of our youth
attics, closets, beds, basements
– better we find them, than they us
Rain’s worms and snow’s angels,
the business of those quarters
Feared only were the fatherly scold
the playground rebuke and the motherly palm
in a time when the doubts of giants trickled down to our crowns
like raindrops upon ants
Now we roam as giants
much too tall to gaze upon the insects
whom we frolicked with once upon a time
and our tears have matured
They will plunge toward our heirs, threaten to drown them
unless they learn quickly to amend
and mirror the tread of their keepers
From ours we fled
Two wheel commute carrying us far from our jobs
of holding no agenda, but instead faceless grudges –
then unnamed
fated to revisit in adult slumber and
despite all,
keep us from remembering what we then could not see…
were still less complicated times
Patrick Battle has been previously published in the Garland Court Review (2010) and from 2007 to 2008. He worked as a columnist and staff writer for Northern Star, Northern Illinois University’s daily print publication with a circulation of 15,000 and is currently pursuing an Associate’s degree in Journalism at Harold Washington College in Chicago, IL.
