Her hand in mine, we walk together slowly, <br />In the diminishing heat and softening light <br />Of a sultry midsummer’s southern afternoon <br />Down Maycomb’s main residential street- <br />All pastel clapboard, wide verandahs, floral baskets and shady trees. <br />Despite the dusty road, the weeds persisting in the sidewalk cracks, <br />The sense is all of order-of a certain quiet confidence. <br />We pass the Radley lot unscathed and head for town, <br />Going by a lady bonneted and tending her azaleas, <br />Exuding happy industry, while another, older, scowls <br />From her wheelchair, shrouded in shawls- <br />No pistol evident, her camelias still intact. <br /> <br />Passing Jitney Jungle’s shop window in the square, <br />I notice our reflection and, beyond, the sullen jailhouse, <br />Where a hastily rigged light bulb hangs naked, <br />Above a simple wooden chair. <br />Opposite, in the Courthouse, behind its false facade, <br />I guess there’s talk of ugly acts and uglier attitudes persist, <br />Ingrained like dirt, beneath a grubby schoolboy’s nails, <br />And Atticus wipes his glasses, staring through the window, <br />Pensive, unseeing, across the square at me, <br />While I wonder, doubting, if my child <br />Will ever be gently urged, <br />“Stand up, your father’s passing.”<br /><br />Steve Lang<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-reading-to-kill-a-mockingbird-with-my-daughter/
