Returning To The Place I Left (from Boyhood Tales)

How to Join	Member's Area	Private Library	Search	Sanctuary		Login
Main Forums	Discussion	Tech Talk	Mature Content	Archives	A home without a wall, Our haven without ends, A circle we all call Our Family of Friends!

jwesley
Member Rara Avis

since 2000-04-30

Posts 7563
Spring, Texas

0 posted 2001-03-12 04:06 PM

Returning To The Place I Left
(from Boyhood Tales)

Returning to the place I left…
found difference, standoffness,
space between all and me.
The tree is still a tree; I remember a limb,
a swing, laugher.
The house was a home; SOLD!
The street was shells and dust; concrete now,
curbed, drained, oil spotted, tire marked,
soulless.

The only sameness,
and even that's going away,
is the telephone pole by the driveway.
There's a new pole laying on the ground
next to it, a new hole has been dug alongside it,
but it still stands tall, with all our initials on it,
all the hearts and the names, the carvings
and the chewed up side where we'd throw our knives.

All the empty, wooded lots have houses now,
neatly manicured slices of somebody's life.
This is their place now.
I don't belong here anymore.
Nothing of me is left.
Wow.
What a couple years can do.

Time passes, and you don't even know it's gone.
Pieces of you disappear, memories of you fade away.
Obscure thoughts of you occasionally light an eye,
spark a pleasant thought in the mind of someone you knew,
then it's gone, a firefly in the head, briefly bright.

Returning to the place I left…
found difference, standoffness,
space between all and me.
My feet didn't fit the grass anymore,
Everything seems smaller, somehow.
Less bright, less warm…less mine.

Returning to the place I left…
I found difference,
and I think the difference,
is me.

© December 1999
w. james beard, jr.

Irish Rose
Member Patricius

since 2000-04-06

Posts 10263

1 posted 2001-03-12 04:20 PM

You impacted me with this one. Yes, the tree, the things that somewhat remain the same, and man changes everything else. I thought this was quite a subtle powerful poem.

Kathleen Blake

"When red-haired girls scamper like roses over the rain-green grass,
and the sun drips honey."
Laurie Lee

Just A Woman
Senior Member

since 2001-03-10

Posts 507

2 posted 2001-03-12 04:42 PM

I applaud your conclusion. It's excellent. We move on, we change, and we grow......though the sorrow of what we lose sometimes is a struggle.
Excellent expression -
"Space between all and me"

After years of searching, I have found I am nothing more, nothing less...I am in truth Just A Woman after all.

inot2B
Member Elite

since 2000-09-18

Posts 2205
Arkansas

3 posted 2001-03-12 04:45 PM

I felt this way when I went back to the one place I really enjoyed as a child. It just wasn't the same.

Nate Dogg
Senior Member

since 1999-11-15

Posts 1658
Georgia, Fulton

4 posted 2001-03-13 11:02 AM

I loved the way you've expressed yourself...I really enjoyed reading this piece....a great poem!

Nathan

SEA

Moderator

Member Seraphic

since 2000-01-18

Posts 22676
with you

5 posted 2001-03-13 11:27 AM

JWesley~ I know this too well....my "home town" isn't mine any more.....I've changed and grown, and the town seems so sad to me now......this made me remember so much....and feel so much....thank you for this

SEA

Martie

Moderator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-09-21

Posts 28049
California

6 posted 2001-03-13 11:47 AM

JWesley--this is charming and true...the trip back in time shows changes..and you are seeing it with different eyes. Very well done!!

suthern

Member Seraphic

since 1999-07-29

Posts 20723
Louisiana

7 posted 2001-03-13 03:12 PM

I've been very lucky... time has etched changes on my Dad's place but I can visit some memories unchanged... except, of course, for the changes in me. *S* I like this very much... and the thoughts it takes me to. *S*

	⇧ top of page ⇧
All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format.