Going Home

Friends 1965 - 652 Norfolk Ave., Buffalo, NY

Yesterday's post about the elm trees that I miss so much that ran up and down the street in my neighborhood when I was going up reminded me of a poem I wrote about 10+ years ago. In retrospect, it's a bit of a sing-songy rhyme but it captures the feeling well. I'm pretty sure I shot the photo above as I'm not in it but my brother is, eating an ice cream cone. My mother, being an artist, always let us paint with her oils and use the brownie camera.

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GOING HOME
by Cindy Amrhein

Home is in our memories from days when we were young;

Of friends we never saw again, and childhood things we’d done.

But all is changed and different now that I am fully grown;

And I never can go home again. I never can go home.

Giant arching elm trees ran the whole length of my street.

A street with black top grayed with age that never burnt our feet.

“Come play my game!” clanked Kick-the-Can, as we’d hide on a warm summer’s eve.

Now I want to play, but the echoed clink, is the lone reply to me.

Children’s ghostly images, their voices in the wind;

In a lot that’s over grown with weeds where baseball fields had been.

The theater where dreams were formed has burned down to the ground;

And plazas grow upon the grave where movies once were found.

Yes, home is in the memories from days when we were young;

Of friends we never saw again and childhood things we’d done.

But all is changed and different now that I am fully grown;

And I’m longing to go home again, I’m longing to go home.

So when I die, if heaven is as I perceive to be,

And I can pick my place and time to spend eternity;

I’ll choose the friends and things that were when I was not yet grown;

Then truly I’ll be home again, yes, I’ll be truly home.

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This is post #2 in the Ultimate Blog Challenge.