Raccoon Valley Road

It was the first Monday in May as I recall

or perhaps April as I did not remember well,

when I strolled not so leisurely through

the heavily wooded area beside our home,

it was a place visited often by my friends and me

to dwell among and within the level of nature

where as innocent lads we spent much of our time

when not learning something in public school

the nature of which although I was bound to forget;

we frolicked and played most of the day and

dug out caves in the ground over top of which

we built our fortresses of imagination and fortitude

that one day we would do battle with a foe

remembering well out times on Raccoon Valley Road

sitting around campfires, cooking fried eggs

drinking water from home out of aluminum canteens

fighting off outlaws with cap guns rifles that

were Christmas gifts a few months before...

wondering how did they know what we'd be playing

in those wooded areas beside our homes; and...

journey back into these woods this day

I have no doubt what I will find unless some other lads

decided to tear down what we had built and

construct their own fortresses of solitude...

hiding squirrels and rabbits I easily see as

stoically silent they hesitate their movements until I pass

with all my crunching sounds stepping on fallen wood,

the sounds of birds chirping in the distance attract my ears

and I halt myself wondering where they be in

relationship to where I am most currently not where

I've been or might have been had I taken another path;

and the memories that are confronting me

do not come pouring in like flood waters over a dam

but curiously silent they have abandoned me as if

this wooded valley held no memories of mine at all

but rather than wondering why, I journey on

in the hopes that glory will this day finally be found

in this heavily wooded area of Raccoon Valley Road.

3 November 2020