So… he looked on, watching from afar the imagery of family.
Now alone, sitting in place on an old cranky stubborn
porch, eighty-one years of tears laughter and memory/smiled;
his smiled gleamed through the haze and humidly
of another summer day: a day that reminded him
of his younger years when the joy in many eyes gathered
for a day of barbecue and rejoice
in his voice, as his raspy cough briefly interrupted the moment,
was the song of an elderly man missing the days of innocence
but briefly in this time, in the sight of the young boy
he now studied from across the street
he saw a familiarity. His vision saw support and togetherness;
his hearing heard the song of compassion
and in the charcoaled flavored heat, his heart felt
what he thought was forgotten;
the genius and destiny of hope. In his life he has seen
once inspiring brick-layered sidewalks become the mask
of crime that has kidnapped a neighborhood once
proud. He has seen the dreams of children become temporarily
paralyzed by the heights of poverty and many visions
of fear. He watched in silence over all these years
but the tears of his mind has always been vocal.
The shackles
of osteoarthritis that now held on to his bones and the slight
battle with old-aged deafness that now challenged
the vibration of harmony and not even the parade
of high blood pressure marching through his veins
could keep him from feeling the pain and decay
of days passed. But as he looked on at the sight
of burgers and hotdogs sizzling on the grill; as he looked on
at the pleasantries of young and old joining in good times
and fun playing the games of life; as he looked on
and lived again through the body language of the young boy
who now looked back at him
he saw the glimpse of renewal in a community
holding on to the aspects of a neighborhood’s inheritance.
For the first time in many decades, he saw the enjoyment
in dancing trees that waltzed in the breezes of tomorrow;
he felt shades of sweat trickle down his bronzed almond skin
that was the welcomed condensation of happiness
and he smelled a renewed energy of genetic fortitude
that was family all in the aroma of summer cooking –
and so…he dreamed on.
Tarringo T. Vaughan
© 2012
