Steady moments blanketed on a canvas of time,

fallen

are the memories

now scattered across sidewalks where the footprints

of childhood once rhymed.

We used to play back then, when solid trees

Stood tall, but now only their leaves

now lay.  The beauty of innocence, now forgotten, once

was the portrait of a wonderful display

as each November we danced in the rain

in our elements of youth before crime hit the city

and dreams drifted off into just an echo

of silence that now parole curbs of decay.  Only leaves

remain, now crumbled into fossil(ed) reminders of how

life use to be, back then, when autumn winds

tickled the faces of our forever child; before

times got wild and growth took us away

from everything we dreamed was possible.

Now, as these leaves scatter, I hear each sound of laughter

As they crumble under my feet and within each

pleasure of burgundy mixed with a slight tint of brown

I see each face that I once knew –

fallen but very much alive inside

the heart of years gone by.

© 2012

Tarringo T. Vaughan