backyardea

remember our back-yard growing up?

all of those kingdoms and nations

and our Indian tribes?

The tree-house that we’d fill with waterballoons

by day

and sleeping-bags by night?

The secrets we’d tell

behind the garage

and the twigs and the mud

remember the hose in the summer-time

and the snow in the winter?

the forts and the acorns?

The cloudy days when we’d sit up the pine tree

or the clear warm nights

when we’d play man-hunt in

the neighborhood?

remember the sound of the leaves rushing through the trees

as the wind would blow?

the army men

and the bow that dad would let us shoot

the old pile of logs that we would find worms in?

remember trying to dig a swimming pool,

but it was just a hole?

when we would hide from Amir

behind those bushes?

remember when we had that old rope to swing on,

hanging from the big tree?

remember when we’d race down the sidewalk

on wagons and skateboards

with old plungers and fist-fulls

of pebbles?

remember going back there to hide

or to cry in the bushes

when we didn’t want to be found?

remember all the army-men

and the times when the world seemed to end

at the fence by Mr. Anseley’s house and the sidewalk

in the front yard?

Well I remember,

and I don’t know why

but it makes me cry