Fate plays a game without a score
bringing me back where I grew
Musing at the apron of loneliness
covering me, hovering over me
in a room once painted with memoirs
opening a window down memory lanes
joints cricking , reminiscence aching
dusting those sun-kissed
work hardened hands
brows wiggling against blinding
rays of my county’s sun.
I see weeds sprouting despondently
worming a dried up backyard
where we rushed over fences
to catch the first carol every Christmas
where the castles in sandboxes
were the only known sands of time
when edgy rainy dull Sundays
stranded us in our rooms
waiting with noses against this window
chin upon clenched hands
sniffing running noses
spirits only soaring higher by the minute.
I changed, aged, matured
but this place remains unaffected
I’ve grown wings, wrinkles
challenged, failed, bruised with time
stabilized which was a gamble then
when daring an enemy-clad sibling
was the only mission in tow
failure was getting a B in art
while that neighbor’s acing it
bruising meant a wounded knee
or a scraped elbow over sunset
times do flicker and people do differ
you realize smiling a little
that was then & this is now…
~ET/MD, 2010
