First Crawl

First crawl I learnt to crawl in a tie, Banker’s suit and smile on a lucky tot. Learning the secrets of trades and service, I’d make a difference with my skills, And earn some money on the side. I learnt to crawl with tons of rules, To master the job, I turned a thousand pages. To prove my worth, I hugged every mentor, And cleaned their messes without a fuss. A good tyro carries the teacher’s boots. And like a robot, I emptied the bins, I crunched the numbers and wrote memos. The keys devoured the prints off fingers, With no responsibilities, I could endure, Endure for hours past closure. Only crickets heard my crackling back at night, “When learning to crawl, you practice, you know, Perfect practice makes practice perfect…” I was too young to care, they’d say. Even so I withered to a bag of bones. Still learning to crawl, I bore her bag without a word, And at the seat of grilling for review, Never let the cat out of the bag for, Sometimes it scratches the bearer; T’was a secret sauce of wisdom, lucky to learn! I was learning to craw and, I walked the miles for a scrap of unfair share. And never tasted a slice of the cake. A toddler never runs the race of grown-ups. A crump is enough to blind the eye.