Asphalt, Blackened Trees, and Memories

Just some descriptive free verse with jangled memories of my hometown.....

 

Blackened bark on tall trees, darkened with wetness

Golden leaves blooming and falling in carpets

Across dewy lawns in grey autumn afternoons

Sauntering down dim secret streets

Exist only here for the few travellers that tread them

Straight steel railroad ribbons moving onward

Dissecting the city like a knife

Cross the asphalt veins and cobbles pathways

Muddy tracks travelled by bicycles and footprints

Rediscovered in solitary silences

Broken beer bottle glass littered amongst the sidewalk stains

Coloured statements of a rebellious youth

Hidden along the tiny walled side-paths

The grey-green waters tremble as they reflect

The darkening skies that loom and gloom above

Tall dark steel and iron towers pointing upwards

As defiant rusted gods reaching for heaven

And only finding the gathering gloomy ceiling above them

The empty windows of houses and buildings

Each a remembrance of some thing done, or said

Of some vague memory of a teenaged night

Or a reminder of a young man’s misery and despair

Each address an anecdote or familiar tale

“Remember that time we….? Remember when…?

Just over there, in that place it happened!”

We laughed and reminisced of youthful bravado

Yet feel that we had lost something there

In that time and place

Church bells mournfully calling

To those that still hear them

Barrooms and taverns full of the same faces

The same stories, the same smiles, the same songs that I hear

The days of the basement parties are long gone

Teenage inhibition gave way to adult apathy

That this is how it is, and will always be

Quaint quiet interrupted occasionally

By some odd disturbance

Narrow murky pathways

That run through the night park

Past the stone soldier that ominously looms above us

To the still pond and pavilions

The ribbon of sidewalk that parallels the water

Dim-lit path beneath early eve’s streetlamp glow

The same pizza parlours that smell so delicious

Aromatic and Italian, they waft out their doors

Invitingly, as ever before

Bicycle riders, police cruisers

Nomads and wanderers

The big truck barrelling down the street

In search of dispensed automatic caffeine

From the local Tim Horton’s

Lonely corner stores, sad and unchanging

The same brand of cigarettes, the same magazines

Faintly familiar faces serve me that I dare not acknowledge

As the distance inside continues to grow

Run-down reminders of past former glories

Empty fields where factories once stood

New gleaming buildings in careful completion

Now down in midst of old neighbourhoods

Bingo callers are calling, faint voices ringing

Out in the night, with all ears attentive

Old ladies and mothers in religious attendance

Race out for taxis and home and the taverns

Like on one million nights as any before

I remember each crack, each stain in the pavement

I memorized each step before I ever left

Ingrained in my memory are these vague reminders

And so strangely comfort me

As my return approaches….

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