Wishbone could be narrating the
scene;
at least, in the mind of the small
boy,
he could. They explored through the
stream
pretending to be Lewis and Clark,
Brad and Rosalind; hoping to blaze a
trail
to the Pacific in their jackets of
blue jean.
It’s what happens when Amelia
Bedelia and Corduroy
live at Grandma’s trailer;
pretending to play on the high school team
while shooting baskets at the hoop
‘til after dark;
a place where imagination takes full
sail,
a rodeo chute out of the washing
machine
as Brad(on his bucking bronco
stickhorse) played cowboy;
where bowls of late-night strawberry
ice cream
could be devoured alongside tales
from places like Denmark –
this was well before Mimi grew so
frail.
The farm’s run down now, no more the
clean
and orderly neighborhood of cats,
horses and Happy Meal toys.
Well, no, it’s still alive in
memory, it seems –
Once in a while you run into Arthur
the aardvark
or those pictures of cats perched
atop a hay bale.
Okay, so now there might be baked beans
at supper, forcing you to employ
a distractification scheme
to hear anew about that Melville –
shark?
Just listen to relatives’ stories
for a spell.
Memories are here for a moment,
before the ghosts possess
the places once lived in by those we
loved best.
By all this verse a message I hope
to imply:
Don’t let the stories die.
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