Bundled, dressed, and prepared
for winter and spring, the sun is sharp
and clear, the air is charged and crisp.
Walking between town homes
with grey steel siding and
dry cement driveways,
our path is thick with snow,
ice, overturned grass from machinery
and footprints from dogs, people,
and other creatures we only see
after they have left.
Past the empty and still
swing set and slides, and the buried
child-sized back-hoe that
an occasional adult will
try when they think no one
is looking.
In the summer months
benches, swings, slides
and the soccer field team
with activity, barking dogs,
screams, cries, and laughter.
Now the city is sleeping.
The field is a pock-marked white sheet
stretched from one goal post
to the other.
Thoughts are present until
the air becomes filled with
a smell, familiar, yet distant.
McDonalds french fries.
Walking the side-streets to
morning physics, through slush
snow, and ice, McDonalds was
part of the routine, as much as
placing the left leg in first and
tying the right shoelace.
Steeped within this memory
a longing creeps in and I remember
days filled with lectures, pencils,
deadlines, papers, and shooting pool
to blow off steam.
Each day simple compared to now
but the day then chaotic from paper
to lab to mid-term to finals.
Procrastination a friend taken beneath my
wing, unveiled when 15 pages on the
industrial age and its use of technology.
Where have these days gone?
I remember the actions and the
activities, but I do not remember the person
or the hands behind the memories.
In fact, I do not believe this is myself
anymore, and with a detached glance
I put this memory away, for another
day perhaps.
