You could say
'those were the days'.
Those really were
the days
when a day was as long
as you could imagine,
there was no tomorrow
except on christmas eve.

Afternoons crept by
full of summersaults
and handstands, cartwheels
that weren't 'just right'
because your back wasnt straight.
You thought if you could just
fling hard enough
it should pull you out into a line
instead of that crooked 's' that
no proper cartwheel should make.

The grass never ever felt the same
after those days,
those days when the green couldn't have
gotten greener
the saturation of the hue was by far
the most you would ever see in your lifetime..
and you were inches from it
for most of the day,
sometimes laying down in it with no fear
of creepy-crawlies,
because they did not exist
except at Halloween
and maybe the occasional evidence
of a locust on an oak tree,
its hollow shell a harmless thought
more than anything else.

Those were the days when brothers
where brothers and sometimes angels,
and sisters were sisters and sometimes devils.
Brother dares littler brother to climb high,
Bigger sister dares brother to climb even higher
much higher than you would ever climb again,
so high that the sky was just out of reach
and the ground was as well,
and Daddy had to rescue brother,
but that was okay
because that was what you did those days.

11/12/2008

Posted on 11/12/2008
Copyright © 2024 Vikki Owens