One reliable path
to a good mood,
even to ebullience,
is heading down hill
at a fast clip.
Picture the kids,
sledding and mudding and whooping
in the winter and the wet,
picture the pines and the pastures below
and you falling forward into the sun.
See the Mad Pirate Roberts
(the Farm Boy in disguise) and the Princess Bride
rolling downhill, bandanas and skirts
waving along the way, giddy
and gasping and almost intimate.
This is what down hill can do.
But uphill is Jack and, of course, Jill
and broken crowns and tumbling down
their separate ways. Such negativity
is the price for going up.
But downhill,
tripping or not,
the valley unfolds ahead
and the blue sky stretches
forever.
