A PASSING GLANCE

Youth and age briefly glimpsed each other one April Sunday when I was walking in the lanes around Bordeaux. 
I wrote this poem when I arrived home.

MY LIKENESS-CHILD

A child stands by a windowpane,
looks down through Sunday rain, as I
trudge slowly down a rural lane,
head bowed, beneath a leaden sky
like a too-laden hammock slung.
Though April, spring seems yet unsprung.

I glimpse a movement to the right,
glance up and see him standing there.
He waves, perhaps to be polite,
and I wave back, return his stare.
I think how much he looks like me
when I was his age, guileless, free.

I trudge along against grey rain
that threatens to engulf the day,
then hesitate, look back again:
my likeness-child has slipped away
back to his games, his screen, his book.
I’m hardly worth a second look.