She passed me on the run,
her soles were pink,
her socks were purple
and her shorts were black and white.
Her legs were tanned and bare
and her shoulders, also two – bare too –
and above it all, her light red hair
tied up in a bobbing pony tail,
keeping quick time like a coppery pendulum,
swinging and swaying –
tick tock –
tick tock.
But, alas, the time that the young woman kept
was time she kept not for me.
There were some wires curling out
of both her ears,
but there was no smoke nor fire
that I could see.
Still she hastened away from me
and as I reached down deep into my pocket
for my electronic device, I could find
no settings to tune her back in
to my much older wavelength.
And then when I looked back up, peering,
her pink soles had run keen out of sight.
Quickly I walked, at least for me,
I looked both ways at the corner.
I looked to the left
and I looked to the right.
No flashing pink soles
did I see bouncing up and down
nor down and back up.
No purple socks,
nor pendulum pony tail -
no nothing but cracked and empty concrete sidewalks.
So with my eyes still searching high and low,
and once or twice more low and high,
I stepped off of the curb.
Alack! I abruptly came to a halt
in front of a honking speeding, silver sedan.
The hurtling car missed me by ten or twenty feet,
but still my heart dropped, still pounding,
and when I bent to the pavement to pick it up I saw
that it was only a copper penny
lost carelessly in the street.
The penny had been darkened with age
and honest Abe was as simply speechless as I was.
But in these times, a penny is insufficient payment,
my heart too old for skipping beats,
my life flickering - not flashing - before my squinting eyes,
and not least –
no sight of her vanishing pony tail marking my time.
Her shoulders were bare,
her two legs were running out of my sight,
but her pony tail still beating steadily in my mind -
I wondered how could she have passed me by so easily?
I tried to put the penny in the meter
but they only wanted nickels and dimes
and at a quarter to two, or shortly thereafter,
it appeared that my time was finally running out.
No other choice did I see,
I had looked too many times in vain,
so I just put the penny in my pocket.
Tomorrow, after all, might be a rainy day.
Though if the sun comes around shining
there will likely be another woman running,
they come along like clockwork
but not quite as often as buses anymore.
Still it’s probably too soon or too late
to not step in front of one or the other.
Not the buses and cars do I mean,
though I certainly won’t miss their rumble and belching
when they’re gone.
But after all is said, something must be done,
and you’re finally ready to stop, look, and listen,
here’s my simple untimely advice:
Look to the right and look to the left,
and pay dearest heed to what is right in front of you.
Her soles will be pink,
her socks will be purple,
her shorts will be black and white,
and bare shoulders or not,
her legs will be running,
her pony tail will be marking the time.
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