What Used to Be

Here's what a walk is like in your hometown, every block a memory.

There's my old high school; there's my new one. There's where I lived when I taught high school.

There's where a fellow teacher lived who gave me a ride when it was raining.

There's where my friend Joelle lives, a Bluegrass Trust beauty of a house with Buddhist prayer flags strung across the portico.

There's the bakery that I always reach 10 minutes after it closes (thank God).

There's the old house and the old, old house.

There's the rag-tag park where we used to play. It smelled of earth then, and wet concrete. Now it's filled with earth-moving equipment.

There's the steep hill to the park, down which Dad once sledded, right into the creek.

I saw plenty of new houses, new trees, new people. But I hardly noticed them.

Instead I saw what used to be.