I want to return to that place—
the comfort and ignorance of childhood,
the rooftops, the trees, haylofts, and attics,
the fast river and railroad tracks that led nowhere and
everywhere,
green fields and barbed wire fences, and salt licks for
sampling.
Free days.
I remember the scent of my father, the oil and hay, stale
manure, and Old Spice.
In church, I explored weathered hands with blackened nails,
sucking Lifesavers while adults thought about Jesus.
I remember mum in floral house dresses with sensible shoes,
baking cookies, tender crusted pies, and fried bologna we
thought was a treat,
berry picking and chauffeuring to Jeffrey’s Lake for a muddy
swim with leeches.
Free days, happy days—at least for a child.
I want to return to that place before the angry shouts of
opposition parties,
the heated debates about border, fentanyl, and sex
trafficking,
the hot tears and anger with mass shootings and invasion
robberies.
To the place with unlocked doors and no coded security
systems,
to the place where every neighbor was a friend and helper
and
not suspected of being on some sex offender’s registry.
Free days, ignorant days.
But there is no going back, I guess;
there is no unknowing and unseeing what the world has become,
and we would desperately protect our own,
hold off the darkness as long as possible; but
somehow it seems we have dragged our little ones along to
this troubled place.
But I would return if I could.
