I remember <br /> Hot summer days <br /> with tarred sidewalks <br /> sucking at ones feet <br /> The dusty shopkeepers <br /> standing in their quiet stores <br /> The silence allowing their wares <br /> to speak <br /> <br />I remember <br /> Long spring nights <br /> Baseball, basketball, football <br /> Volleyball, tag, badminton <br /> Chasing up and down the street <br /> until the sun drowned in twilight <br /> and mothers called <br /> out supper <br /> <br />I remember <br /> The ice rink <br /> Laying planks in the backyard <br /> flooding the rolled out plastic <br /> Gliding in and out the spotlight <br /> on dark snowy nights <br /> to the old fashioned radio’s <br /> Gershwin tunes <br /> <br />I remember <br /> Quiet evenings <br /> Mom’s sewing machine whirring <br /> making dresses, shirts, and handkerchiefs <br /> Dad’s pencil scratching <br /> a new house, apartment, office block <br /> Drawing blueprint dreams <br /> of someday <br /> <br />I remember <br /> Riding in our old blue Chevy <br /> to the local motel <br /> one unremarkable night <br /> Coming home to an empty house <br /> and Mom playing the piano <br /> song after song to silence <br /> her despair.<br /><br />Lynn Kincade<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/once-47/
