Running the Hurdles

First the photo. I had a new camera. Who hasn't fiddled with a new toy, trying to figure out how it works, without all the bother of reading a lot of boring, technical stuff?

I knew it had some kind of gizmo that would allow me to take my own picture, or appear in the photo with others, if I chose. But I wasn't exactly sure how it worked.

I pushed a few buttons and set the camera on a nearby shelf. I waited. I waited and waited. Nothing seemed to be happening. I decided to take a look to see what was wrong. At that instant, I heard a tiny z-z-z-z-zip, and I was recorded for posterity.

Blurred, but recorded.

The poem, I think, cries out for more poetic detail ... and more detail would call for more than its eight short lines could deliver.

The poem may, in fact, have been longer when it was first written ... but I was under the mistaken impression that Capper's only published eight-line poems.

So there you have it, two mistakes coming together to make today's offering:

RUNNING THE HURDLES

Have you

ever noticed

how many more

things go wrong

when you're trying

to get away

early, or make up

for lost time?

© 1997

***

Today's word: gizmo