Gravel streets and railroads,
\nsnaking down to Sandusky Bay.
\nThe rails were a lattice along the water.
\nIt is not plain to me
\nwhere the apples were,
\nor the buckeyes.
\nChildhood is in the cupboard
\nbehind the spices,
\nnear the dark aromatic wood
\nof the wall.<\/p>\n
It was a small town of churches
\nand open lots,
\nhouses square as boxes
\nby vegetable plots,
\nworn grass, and weeds.
\nThe graveyard was a quarry of stone,
\nnames chiseled on their mastheads,
\nstacks of newsprint in the attic,
\nobscure dates and pictures of black
\nand white.<\/p>\n
How many explosions have I heard
\nin the passing years,
\nhorns and bells?
\nBut none like those I heard there.
\nThere are no bottles for sunlight,
\nthe smell of peonies,
\nthe dry dust of pungent stone,
\nthe passing of people
\nwho resemble no one I see now.<\/p>\n
The sound of horns
\ncoming from the freighters
\non the bay,
\npassing like black islands
\ndown the channel,
\nfish odor by the piers,
\nand my family before its scattering.
\nLeaving with promises to return.<\/p>\n
The echoes of playmates,
\nDonald, Robert, Junior
\none day saying,
\nanother day saying,
\nwe are moving,
\nand I knew it was forever,
\nrain that never returns.
\nMy loneliness dissolved in time,
\nreplaced by other losses,
\nuntil for every memory
\nthere are a host of days
\nI can never recall.<\/p>\n
Except like dreams,
\nwhen I waken,
\nand wonder,
\nwhat was it I dreamed?
\nWhy do I ache,
\nso close to tears,
\nfor things lost and gone inside?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gravel streets and railroads, snaking down to Sandusky Bay. The rails were a lattice along the water. It is not plain to me where the…<\/p>\n