Thursday, September 1, 2011

Autumn strolls
















In my college days, I loved to
walk to class in the cool fall air,
wading through piles of leaves,
peering in people's yards to
check out their flowers, landscaping,
small children, and pets, especially
cats that needed a nose-to-tail stroking,
taking note of what I wanted in my dream
home, some day.
It meant I needed to leave early
enough to detour past the old junior
high school to peer in the wire-embedded
windows, wondering at the offices and
businesses now claiming that space,
though it looked just as it did  - and just
as institutionally ugly - when
I did my brief time there between
the parents' moves from town to town.
Walking past schools and old shops
and even older stately houses was
always fuel for imagination, dreaming
and scheming of lives and ghosts and
history, I sauntered these streets of
my father's childhood, looking for the
memory of the little boy that was him
near his old house, walking
round and round the old football track
across the street, picturing him as
a child, a teenager, and a young man.

(Posted for Theme Thursday, "Curious", 9/1/11 and for Poetry Pantry 65, 9/4/11)

(Also posted for Poetry Picnic #3, "Free Linking", 9/4/11 and for
Free Write Friday, "Celebrating Autumn", 9/11/11)

12 comments:

  1. wow! this is nice! here's my entry: http://fiveloaf.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/a-roar-to-mankind/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wonderful and vivid writing. I could feel the crip air and sense the searching in you as you traversed the town. Very nicely done!

    My entry: http://charleslmashburn.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/blood-on-the-moon-2/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for this tour through your past and your thoughts!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, this is so lovely. Thank-you for taking us with you.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wonderful tour through you past. Thank you and happy gooseberry days

    http://gatelesspassage.com/2011/09/04/haggle-baggily/

    ReplyDelete
  6. An epic poem. I was hooked all the way through.

    Here is my entry:
    http://jackedwardspoetry.blogspot.com/2011/09/brothers.html#comments

    ReplyDelete
  7. (smile) I still enjoy peering, imagining what others' lives may be like :) nice!

    Happy gooseberry day!!

    http://lynnaima.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/chamfering/

    ReplyDelete
  8. Cool poem, I loved it from the first word to the last, and then around again as I enjoyed it a second time.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Wonderful memories invoked with your words. They seem to ramble like your walk and it isn't until they end you realize their well chosen purpose.

    Very nice.

    And such a loss these days that we load kids in buses and take them to school.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I sauntered these streets of my father's childhood, looking for the memory of the little boy that was him ...

    Love this! So happy to have this wonderful piece included in free write friday :) Thank u!

    ReplyDelete

Please share your thoughts!