Borrowed Wonder

I returned to the city
after many years,
to the streets I had first wandered
in my early youth
naive,
and full of wondering eyes.

This time,
I did not return alone.

My husband walked beside me,
and my children looked up
at the lights,
the buildings,
and the restless crowds
as though the city
had just been made.

Around us were visitors
who had crossed oceans
to see America
for the first time.

And somewhere between
their wonder
and my children’s eyes,
I found my own again.

The familiar lights,
the crowded streets,
a place my younger eyes had once explored,
all given back to me
through borrowed wonder.