Time: a creeping, leaping thing

*She walks in beauty...or it may be that she runs so, or jogs.

Walking out in the world some time ago I smiled at the sun, warm on my face. As I paused she ran by, lean, lithe, her blonde ponytail swaying with her strides. Perfume, perspiration, and the slap-slap of jogging shoes against the unforgiving pavement.

She rounded a corner and was gone.

Not very long later I rounded the same corner and moved further through the city. A little distance away from me she stood. An older her, a young man by her side, between them a golden retriever. The light changed and the three crossed the street, the retriever straining against the leash wrapped around her outstretched arm. I heard her young man laugh as he walked by her side, his hand in her free one.

They were quickly lost to my view.

Later in my walk, after turns both right and left, I saw in the distance the blonde young woman, a mother now, pulling a golden-haired boy in a little red wagon, a litheness still present in her gait, a curve to her belly hinting future joys.

The golden retriever was now leashed to her young man. They kept pace behind her, the years lying heavy on the dog.

I stood and watched. Her ponytail was gone, her hair a more sensible style. Her young man...his hair already fading...still smiled easily in response to something she said.

I lowered myself to a nearby park bench, not eager to hurry them through further stages. There would be time enough for college-age children, for grandchildren, for a time alone after her young man was gone.

I closed my eyes, letting the early summer sun warm my face, smiling at life.

* My thanks to Lord Byron for the phrase.