The Other Half

The race started late, but the weather
Cooperated with a warm wind
Out of the south and plenty of sun.
How many runners were there, in all?
How did each runner define success?
What did a runner's toddler daughter
Straying in the piles of copper leaves
Think to her emerging sense of self
That had nothing to do with the race?

It takes awhile to care about rules,
About the measures of performance
Abstracted out of who made who cry
And who got left behind and was sad.
The abstraction itself is a veil
Fine and high as noctilucent clouds
Draped down from one extreme or other,
Invisible in the sunny day
But important, somehow, way up there.