Year after Year

By ones, twos and in groups
(with an occasional straggler)
the children flow toward school.
Their faces turned toward morning
show some clear-eyed, some sullen,
some faces seem to slog along as if
their owners were slaves of habit,
some shoulders hunched over the wheel
of a car hurry for the parking lot
as if they could overtake time.

After they are gone I wait. Rain or shine,
frost or storm—no postman he—
an elderly man jogs by the house
with a serious smile and limp wave.
I count on his greeting every morning.
It satisfies me to know someone in this world
finds the discipline of order worth the effort.
Each year the schoolchildren go by
with younger, different faces.