I’m finding it difficult to write lately. I have lots of ideas that go through my head, but when I want to write them down, I forget what it was I was thinking. Hopefully I’ll come up with a better memory aid to help me write. My goal this week is to try and write every day. I’m presently in cleaning and organizing mode. We are having a yard sale on Saturday, which prompts me to go through a lot of old stuff. In doing so, I came across this piece of writing that I did in the Summer of 1991. It is as if while looking for old things to sell, I found an old thing that is to be remembered.
Ah…To Be Then Again
by Harvey Heilbrun
A large cement wall, 25 to 30 feet high.
A chalked square to play stickball,
punchball.
Hounds and Hare on warm summer nights.
A dusty old park by my house,
Sidewalks transformed into boxball courts,
Steps to Stoop Ball fields.
A sandbox becomes second base;
A tree first, a rock third.
What nature did not intend,
Our imaginations created.
I’ve gone back to where I grew up.
I can feel the places of my youth
But the scenes are not the same:
There’s a fence and a lock,
Another fence, a driveway, a blocked stoop,
A new park,
Benches,
Grass,
Pond,
Where old people sit and talk.
But there’s no sandbox, no rock –
The part we created is gone.
The imagination of it all.
No more bats of broom handles.
No more fun.
The beauty of the chalked square on the wall.
The vacant lot.
Those summer nights together with friends.
A memory
