That Framed and Famous Day

With starting lines in measured meters Down back alleys we would run. Asphalt drawn with borrowed paint Against each other’s clocks. However matter what the speed, Our youth could not outrun The dimming of the light. We ran with ragged t-shirts flying white, Battle-flags of poverty and youth. Swiss cheese costumes trailing From tanned-skin bodies. Cloud-like storms in herds of two. We ran with hearts Pressed to the light In hopes our wild youth protect us From the newborn world Of sudden fright. Our elders Could not understand The pull. Running into daytimes perfect wink. Running into night, By solitary streetlamp light On solitary phalanx pole Down alleyways Of forming memories made. Breached in manufactured steel; Not by this Or any other time be stole. Gasping children, long run through Our mothers’ gaping doors. Frozen captured moments Now slow released in modest rapture. Passing age Deflating each ones soul. We hooked our hearts On borrowed time Toward winters frosty grip. Sang songs of summer youth before Our child-time might slip So sure away; That framed and famous day. Time endures through rhyme As life is read by passing glance: Oh could we be now more wishful, Stilled in plea, With grace of God, For roads we long to trod When given one more chance.