'round

I have to leave today
if only
for a while
like
his mother leaving for a walk
around the Hundred Acre Wood
and he asking before
would you like
me
to go with you with her replying
no
but when I return
greet me as if
I had been away
a long time

no mother or
another
to whom to say
that
to
or hear that from

though
needing to leave
also
to return
in a later hour
of this day

having gone around

c(hristopher robin) l couch


Christopher Milne tells the story of the walk and the question in The Enchanted Places.  This Christopher better known as Christopher Robin.  (And I nearly forgot mentioning that his name was how I got my own.  Christopher, not Robin but for him, anyway, my mom really liking the stories.)

photograph by Lukasz Szmigiel on Unsplash