Laneway

Laneway

I walked along a laneway as the sun was getting low.

Blackened feet – coastal earth; mem'ries wakened; sea breezes blow.

No more children's footprints, neither earnest shouts that sound;

trees, unclimbed, trail melancholy tendrils on the ground.

Though life was hard in these back yards (ends would barely meet)

my ear still hears that “thump” – a football bouncing in the street.



Through gaps in fences barely standing, I'm catching glimpses.

Glimpses of hand-made dreams; sparse flakes of paint not fallen.

Flakes that call “Remember? Remember how the door jammed?”

“How we never burned it down!” – “Things we got away with…”

A 'teen's retreat' – skip school! The walls recall: “shoot the breeze”;

“pass the joint”; “Baby please! Please baby, don't you be a tease.”



Gravel crunching underfoot. Recalled: the names; the faces.

Time has passed. Some moved on – enjoying other places.

Others, gone: snuffed out by banalities of nature.

Yet still, my heart is light; my feet – as happy dancing;

but, peering through the branches, it seemed to me as though

I walked along a laneway as the sun was getting low.



(Words Feb 2013. Picture today)