Uphill Run

Ascending fast the hillside steep,
Deep green towards a cloudless sun,
Hand in my hand, against the slope,
Just you and I, an uphill run.
Back far below us lie the fields
Tinted by gold and yellow-brown,
Then far below the fields the school,
And far below the school, the town.
We fall and drift against the grass
Exhausted from a climb this far
While still, below us, lies our town
And still above us flares our star.
The sky above, the earth beneath,
The freedom and the space beloved
Dark blue beyond our higher view,
The earth beneath, the sky above.
The wind moves us, we move the air,
And wish the breeze to take us on,
And wish to slip our strings like kites,
High clear into the air and gone.
But it’s the wish alone that soars
With no regard for gravity
That pulls us down to school and town
And time and home and family.
Not yet! We are the highest things,
Two points in radiance and space,
Unseen below, though we can see
From here, our secret vantage place.
Then lying back and looking up,
The border between blue and green
Is us, we lie in that divide
From down here and up there unseen.
We form the line, we are the guard,
The threshold between green and blue,
The brink between the earth and sky,
The border state of me and you.
But turn our faces from the sun
And from the heat, and aimless down
To the small building of the school
And the small buildings of the town.
The sky above, the earth below;
Succumbing to its gravity.
The blue-green line of border holds,
Now missing you, and missing me.