Yesterday, I watched a boy crawling
commando-style across a carpet-rug.
Giggling and chortling, rising and falling,
pushing and pulling with a hauling tug.
In jungle-greens he scampered, head down low.
He moved in spits and spurts. He paused a while.
He reset direction, then off he’d go.
With syncopated skim and cherub’s smile;
through a forest of legs, he spied a light:
a destination worthy of pursuit.
But, when almost there, with his goal in sight,
down came the arms of love: “Aren’t you cute!”
. His mission is to walk, stand proud and tall;
. give the boy some freedom, some space to crawl.
© Tim Grace, 31 January 2012
To the reader: The school-day is all but done. Here comes a troop of toddlers and their yet-to-walk entourage in pushers and prams. They are the freedom fighters, come to release their brothers and sisters from the tyranny of school. One in particular catches my eye; he’s a rug-rat, escaped surveillance and making good ground … but like so many before him, his noble pursuit is thwarted; he is lifted to higher ground by the doting arms of mum… another man down, or up as the case may be.
To the poet: A photograph might have captured the scene more faithfully; but not the story. The story is in the poem which is a figment of my imagination. No-one else, on the day, had any idea of my interpretation. In a fleeting moment I captured a metaphor… two thoughts combined; and so began my sonnet. Metaphors, like butterflies, are at their best in flight; pressed to the page they may lose their colour.
Space to CrawlPicture Source:
http://youtu.be/XGbfqM0ToM8
One More Sonnet 