The Owners Of Granada Street

Willcox, Arizona

The Late 1950s

Good friends, mostly boys, 

a few girls, but we all owned it.

No one fought over it.

It was our refuge from the eruptions

of domestic authority.

Baseball, softball, football,

tricycles, and bicycles,

roller skates with metal wheels 

(remember the key), and hide and seek.

Summer nights, sitting under the corner street light,

swarmed by flying insects, watching bats 

and the occasional owl; 

from boisterous to subdued,

it seemed to us like a pretty good world.

During our street games, 

we stepped aside for the few cars to pass.

The drivers knew us well.

The Baptist pastor and his blue-haired wife scowled,

but everyone else had friendly smiles and a wave.

Once in a while a neighbor

would stop and bat a few balls to us.

I have never forgotten their smiles,

looking like they were twelve again.

From: Small Places, Big Places, Everywhere

Unpub. MS p. 41

A Rambling Sense Of Things

I’m rainy with things physical

and transient, of little and great import,

old beliefs and new about 

how the world should be

but isn’t and never was.

Possessed by an intractable 

sense of romance, my heart

I still wear on my sleeve

for everyone to see.

Memories will not turn loose 

of certain lost things— 

the childhood toy that ignited a galaxy,

the special friend from school

who saved my life more than once,

that one lost love, the one I thought 

was the fire of life,

as clear now as they were then,

simply the stuff of life.

Between being awake and dreaming,

in the realm that seems like nothing,

there is an entire universe in vitro,

a secret slowly growing a heart and soul,

a Breath within a breath,

becoming an eternal presence.

From: Memories Of Things

Left Behind: A Non-linear Recollection

Unpub. MS p. 31

We Were Toddlers Once

As toddlers, we knew that

everything everyday was new

and exciting— 

The new book that was read to us

at least fifty times like it was the first time;

the places we went that were always a favorite.

We absorbed something from each reading,

from each visit,

from each new person met.

We were in awe of the world.

You could tell by the way we squatted 

to get a better look at what was on the ground,

or how we stretched ourselves to see what was 

in a tree or in the night sky.

We wanted to know the name of a bird or a star,

and we knew when to pull 

a carrot from the garden for a snack;

you could see our joy by how we colored 

in our coloring books 

and on the walls.

After traveling in our remarkable, unnameable realms

and evading the wild beasts that lurked everywhere,

unaware of the dirt that often covered us,

we were simply looking to figure out 

how our world was put together.

Our wide eyes said everything 

that needed to be said. 

From: Getting There

Unpub MS p. 7

At Our Age

When we were 

seven and eight years old, 

when the world was at our mercy,

we were nearly perfect.

We were running and shouting

and the world was full

of wonder and possibilities,

as vast as the nearest field;

as close as the starry-starry sky;

as scary as those wild things 

in the noise of night.

We could be notorious and contrary,

rarely did anyone get hurt.

Each day of traveling in the galactic realm 

always seemed better than the last.

The dirtier we were, the farther we had traveled,

in no hurry to get home or older.

From: Getting There

Unpub. MS p. 4