On the corner of New and Union,
The crossing guard asks me where I’m headed.

Now, I’m thirty-eight years old.
I’ve been across the street and back again,
If you know what I mean.
I mumble my thanks, and wave a hand – hoping to transmit,
In one gesture, both an acknowledgement and a release from duty.
I’m OK, I tell her. Just fine.

No such luck.
She strides into the intersection,
Holding aloft her red badge of courage,
Making of her ordinary frame
A colossus of roads.
She halts the world: in this case,
One, maybe two cars sitting in park,
Their occupants mute witnesses to the spectacle
of a six-foot-four man being helped across the road.
I’m determined to make the best of it.
As a father, and as an ardent promoter of the public welfare,
I have, I remember, a deep and pronounced respect
For crossing guards
And things of that nature.
I try and give words to my appreciation,
But the crossing guard is out in front of me again:

“They told me to cross the children. Well,
I figure, everybody’s somebody’s child.”

Sometimes people ask, if God exists,
where She is, and why
it takes Him so long to pick up the phone.
People ask just how God manages, on top of everything else,
to really, truly, love everyone. Everyone. Even those people.
These are real questions,
although the answers may be a little bit hard to grasp
in these little hands of ours.

I will say this.
On the corner of New and Union,
there’s a crossing guard
who’s looking out for you.