Afternoon Tree
It is late afternoon
and the autumn sun sneaks behind
the London plane,
painting a long shadow across the park.
My mind wanders ahead of me,
like a small child pulling against his reins,
kicking through the fallen leaves,
a memory...
The tree is the past
and we walk in its shadow.
We cannot cut it down.
We cannot out-run it,
it just grows ever-longer.
But we could step to the side,
into the sunlight,
and view it from a different angle.
We do not have to stay in the shadows,
we can all pull free from the reins.
Derek Lee