The Downhill Cure

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.