I’d walk along this path at work during lunchtime,
a trail set aside for the students to run cross-country track.
Each day emerging from my hermetically sealed cocoon,
shedding the artifice of the locked-down environment.
The breezeless corridors, a bland interior, the color of composition paper;
a dingy white with several hints of blue and one sparingly dangerous red line.
My first days upon the trail felt so foreign to me.
I was excited to roam beyond the tree line
and find a hidden pond beneath the canopy,
whose stillness reflected the scene in a placid mirror, suddenly ruptured
by the abrupt shriek and awkward flop of a frog.
I must have startled him.
His ungraceful yawp betrayed his composure.
He leapt out of instinct rather than cunning,
embarrassingly shocked by my approach.
I too was surprised, that such a mistake could even be made.
For, who could possibly be ambushed by me?
Throat clearing, heavily breathing, plodding along in my collared shirt and tie.
My dress shoes slapping the earth as I lumbered along
with all of the grace of an infant elephant bounding down that path.
Was he caught unawares daydreaming?
Maybe heavy nictitating eyelids closed for too long a moment
as he dreamed of a better pond where fish and tadpole swim together.
A vision of unity shattered by bored, unthinking me.
A hint of belonging crept into my mind…
Maybe I’m not so far-gone after all. Not too removed from this natural state.
My presence wasn’t so disruptive as I’d imagined it to be.
I too still daydream, can be surprised, and nod off to sleep from time to time.
As I mulled this over in my mind I rounded one more bend.
A napping bird jolted into life, ungracefully squawked
and bounded to the earth once again as I’d surprised another neighbor,
like the apex predator that I am.
by D. Ryan Lafferty
Literary Crumbs: Poems & Short Stories to Savor by D. Ryan Lafferty 