"My Place"

This is my place,
faded tan walls of concrete and plaster,
half buried in a city hillock,
overlooking what used to be the forests of my youth;
The birds that once sang
are now the dull hum of power lines,
and where the old tree house stood
a forgotten pool collects the leaves of autumn;
From the chipped paint of the sundeck
on wobbly legs that sway in breezes,
I watch mother feed the feathered friends
that no longer come around;
And father's rose bushes,
the ones he planted for mom along the fence,
now bring forth blooms not of pink and red
but thorns and prickly bristles;
There at the bottom of the yard
Angel used to wait,
in the appropriate shade of dogwood
for unsuspecting rabbits lost in the city;
And there in the far corner,
four metal posts cut to the ground,
all that's left of a swing set,
First bright red, then chipped in gray;
Where a boy hung upside down
trying to impress the next-door girls,
while brother tried to see
if he could swing high as the sun;
The remnants of a rock garden wall,
nearly fallen into the cold earth,
reminds me of the flower bed it was
And how I buried treasure there;
Cars and trucks and little infantrymen,
now lost to the passing of time,
But not to the childhood memories
that old places can hold;
This is my place,
And though it is not much,
more remembrance than substance
Still it is mine. Still it is home.