An Ordinary Day

It was an ordinary day,

an ordinary walk home from school,

my thoughts clattering along

like a train with no caboose,

jouncing relentlessly

inside my skull.

Halfway home, I stopped

in the middle of the sidewalk,

assaulted by a thought

Utterly simple.

Obvious

New.

But a thought that had never

occurred to me before.

Other people are thinking, too!

Their heads as alive,

crowded,

jumbled

as mine.

Everyone, everyone thinking!

My classmates,

my brother.

My parents!

The woman driving past me

on the bumpy brick street

in her old blue car!

Surely, God’s mind

must be ready to burst

with the noise of it all!

Yet it wasn’t my awe of God’s mind

that halted me there

on the sidewalk,

halfway home

from school.

It was the discovery,

the breathtaking discovery,

that I wasn’t alone,

after all.

I was just another being,

another thinking being,

a member of the

human

race!

I walked on home,

strangely comforted.

Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash