Walking by; I can feel you

Walking, walking, thinking One mood of music, one single song Repeating, repeating, repeating… …fading in and out of my consciousness Now the cold breeze making me feel formal and stylized in my layers Now the heat under my arms making me feel passionate and driven Now an anonymous car A large suburban family Sports Utility Vehicle Pulling just one foot away, keeping pace with my steps Joining me completely unintentionally in my mental floating One furtive glance, I try to appear safely uninterested Safe to them, not to my sensibilities I never know when I will be seen as a threat I am large, I may be scowling simply in concentrated thought I detest appearing frightening, it makes me sad I see a young boy through a three quarter window I feel the full blast of heat from the comfortable, controlled interior Where there is an ambiguous mother, she makes him feel safe There is a soft dog peering curiously with her nose at the wind I am now sharing The boy’s eyes already anticipate the day His day could be anything, he is so young In the space of time my mind will barely blink He can experience 5,000 emotions His day will have many highs and lows he already dreads the danger of He is excited too, thrilled, but nervous The unfiltered blows of the ticking of time The ability of one, “short” day to change the world When every second still feels so new It makes his eyes seem paradoxically ancient He could be a sphinx in his all-consuming contemplation Every fiber of his posture is fixed in anticipation There are many, many possible universes swirling through his eyes The heat of the large suburban family Sports Utility Vehicle has already left him The comfort of his mother’s protection already forgotten The companionship of his never judging friend His trusted snuffly dog sitting lazily in the back seat Has already vanished behind him He still must make the brave walk across the sidewalk… But his mind is racing far ahead of his body I know this is his preschool I have seen children around it, before, but I do not need those memories to know It is written so deeply in those temporarily lost seeming eyes I do not know you, child, never will But we shared the briefest of sight lines A very thin wall of air I saw you, very surely I saw you And I wish you well, from my 38 worlds away