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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Ah…To Be Then Again
\nby Harvey Heilbrun
\n
\nA large cement wall, 25 to 30 feet high.
\nA chalked square to play stickball,
\npunchball.
\nHounds and Hare on warm summer nights.
\nA dusty old park by my house,
\nSidewalks transformed into boxball courts,
\nSteps to Stoop Ball fields.
\nA sandbox becomes second base;
\nA tree first, a rock third.
\nWhat nature did not intend,
\nOur imaginations created.
\nI’ve gone back to where I grew up.
\nI can feel the places of my youth
\nBut the scenes are not the same:
\nThere’s a fence and a lock,
\nAnother fence, a driveway, a blocked stoop,
\nA new park,
\nBenches,
\nGrass,
\nPond,
\nWhere old people sit and talk.
\nBut there’s no sandbox, no rock \u2013
\nThe part we created is gone.
\nThe imagination of it all.
\nNo more bats of broom handles.
\nNo more fun.
\nThe beauty of the chalked square on the wall.
\nThe vacant lot.
\nThose summer nights together with friends.
\nA memory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 … Continue reading