Have a Care, Do...

We're giddy with excitement reminiscent of
childhood, embarking on a little adventure,
a divergence from the ordinary, courting
danger, yet convinced we are invulnerable
to harm, capable of skilled manoeuvres
to keep us safe from misadventure.

This is the new year we have embarked upon.
An auspicious start, with mild temperatures
unaccountably replacing the norm of an icy
January. Sufficiently mild to bring rain,
not snow; fog and icy mist rising on the
landscape, melting the winter-accumulated
snow and ice sending streams and rivers
running unseasonably early.

To the wooded ravine we are determined to
hie ourselves where the slopes and the trails
have been glaciered in gleaming ice, challenging
sturdy balance in a series of slips and slides
as we grasp at tree trunks to steady our
too-imminent descent and interrupt our
hurdling, sweeping-swift passage, adrenalin
rushing and laughter gushing as we call to one
another to exert caution and have a care.

But that's just the thing of it, for it seems
we haven't a care. As though forgotten now the
years that have swifted to bring us from carefree
childhood to carefree dotage. That assured
confidence of the young and heedless now
settled upon us as a tenuous late-life gift to
make of it what we will, tempting and twisting
our elderly noses mischievously at chance
which leniently overlooks our rash enjoyment
politely taking no toll this time around.