Page 18 - Contrast1992Spring

Memory

As I remember it-the house was old.
Old and with a victorian-like country beauty
Sitting across a busy road from fifty's-style homes.
And so it sat very serenely and snobby perhaps
Peeking between the massive trees and iron fence
With birds and spikes warning would-be visitors.
For eleven years this was the place I knew _
Knew as a child knows things with eyes
And hands, smell and laughter, and mostly
With the utmost seriousness that adults misunderstand.
I remember the flowers my grandmother planted
In petite gardens that lined the house and greenhouse
Full of color and merry cheer greeting you.
However, I spent little time there,
For I was always chasing butterflies and snowflakes
Out in the yard and field beyond the wood boards
That would supposedly fence me out of my domain
(A childs thinking, for the world belonged to me then)
And fleeing the house, the TV's cartoons, and homework
I ran into the arms of the world beyond me.
Now, from my memories I look around to find
That nothing is as what it was back in the house
The house that a child built with her dreams;
And now she's grown up - not knowing when
Or to what extent, keeping the boundaries
Brought on by fences, changed by society and people.
But as I remember - sometimes broken by a place in time,
Set in another dream that I remember only as Home.

Tracie Boggess

IK