Walking in the mornings

Walking in the mornings,
I get the feeling that
I am walking towards
the rising sun.

I am already
a step ahead of
the children
(who are surprisingly calm)
and although their uniforms
seem alien to me,
Once they were
more than familiar.

Though I still wear a
uniform (of sorts),
I'm not walking to the end
of the road anymore but to
the rising sun. Though
I am flanked only
by horse-chestnut trees,
the footsteps of a-n-other
still lying vaguely ahead, I am
leading the way
to the rising sun

when I am the soccer mom
who wakes to make dinner
before breakfast,
when I am the candle
burning myself on a dark
tenement doorstep.

To the child behind me I am
quickly becoming the rising sun.