Visiting Memories

Visiting Memories

Somewhere near here
We used to fish
I was just a kid then
More interested in the color of doors
Than the next turn to take

Dad did the driving
To another secret fishing hole
We three kids sat in the back
Playing I spy or I claim that
But the poor towns had nothing we wanted

Still even then
With an undeveloped artist’s eye
I recorded the patchwork of roofs
The weathering of wood
The windmill with missing blades.

Was it this town
Or the next village
Where the car would go first right
Then left through a gate left open
Across a field.

The pond was large
For a pond but small for a lake
The important thing was the quiet
And the empty shores
As we fished.

But where was the right
Is this the village
Where we left the road?
Is the pond of my youth
Just beyond those cottonwoods?

Or the next town?
Or the next right turn?
Is that the windmill that always squealed
When the wind came up at noon?
Is that the house I remember?
Tin for roofs now rusted
Windows all cracked
Doors swinging ajar
Was it that way then?
Has the pond blown away too?

Gone like the residents
Of yet another ghost town
Leaving behind just memories
Of a child in the back seat
Going fishing.

(c) J. Binford-Bell January 2009