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Happiness Was Once...
by Chris Sorrenti
a metal sided wading pool
set up in the back yard
ten feet across
adults having more fun
than we kids
though didn’t mind
watching eagerly
as they’d ‘initiate’
aunts and uncles
older cousins
some fully clothed
into the circle of water
beer and spirits flowing
in equal proportion
to the garden hose
needed to refill the spillage
now
but for photographs
the pool is long gone
as many of the adults
those remaining
much too ill for
drink and such frolic
and except for the ghosts
of summers past
the backyard sits
void of laughter
and the company
that provided it where
...once was happiness
© 2001
Revised © 2020
Photo © 1972 by author
1,850 hits as of December 2024
08/04/2004 Author's Note: At the family forever home, the only photo I have of the pool. Taken in the summer of 1972. We had moved in the previous December. My parents would install a fence in 1977, for privacy, and eventually a back deck.
Posted on 08/04/2004
Copyright © 2024 Chris Sorrenti
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Maureen Glaude on 08/04/04 at 07:34 PM That seems to happen often with some that are sad. They move people but leave them rather unable to comment. This one has a similar feeling as my backyard villanelle, Empty, which I wrote much later. Haunting, with a sense of where did it all go? Very well done. |
| Posted by Ginette T Belle on 08/04/04 at 10:42 PM this is awesome chris...that nostalgic quality in which you write always captivates me..."beer and spirits flowing in equal proportion to the garden hose"...that is such a uniquely written phrase...amazing
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| Posted by J. P. Davies on 08/05/04 at 04:33 PM Memories are wonderful things. You can never perfectly recreate them but they remind you of what good times were like in the past. Great poem Chris :) |
| Posted by Indigo Tempesta on 08/05/04 at 08:21 PM for some reason the formatting of this one is ezpecially catching. thank you for sharing - wonderful thoughts and well-put. |
| Posted by Charles E Minshall on 08/05/04 at 08:44 PM Ah yes I remember a few back yard events like this. Well done Chris....Charlie
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| Posted by Quentin S Clingerman on 08/06/04 at 02:53 AM (I recall reading this.) Nostalgia with a sigh! A memory clip of backyard fun! |
| Posted by Alison McKenzie on 08/07/04 at 02:57 PM In my own life, I find that (for lack of a better term) imprints are left from the moments that touch us deeply. Most of those moments in my life are painful. But I LOVE when a happy imprint is left, and this must be one of those moments for you. It's funny, to me, how we can be transported back to them. Somehow, I imagine, they exist on their own plane, replaying for all eternity and kept alive by our visitations. Who knows, maybe your younger self playing in the water caught the apparition of your older self watching, for just a moment, then shook it off like kids do...Thank you for sharing this!! |
| Posted by Max Bouillet on 08/08/04 at 07:47 AM Memories haunt in good ways as well as bad. This is an excellent verse that reminds us that we are mortals, but also reminds us that we live through the memories of others. Well done. |
| Posted by Alisa Js on 12/18/06 at 10:40 PM hauntingly beautiful filled with precious memories of those times now secured in the hearts and souls of those who participated...;-) |
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