I want to go home in the spring–
Run the Parkway’s green hills,
Packed thick with Loess soil and history,
Accidents of birth–
Roads curling beyond themselves,
The creek, the ball fields,
The secret places along the way,
Hidden by trees and shrubs,
Into the woods, deeper, deeper,
So much unexplored, even by me,
But passed by on the way to the pool,
King Hill, the water tank on top, and below–
Stockyards, empty now but teeming once with life
And death, and dust, and cries, and stench . . .
And to the north, all the way across town,
Wyeth Hill, near the Parkway’s other terminus.
Sad town, slow town, hugging the brown water,
The highway and streets and the bridge crossing the river.
This is the Genesis, the home of sins (original and not),
The Alpha and Omega.
The long summer days of bicycles, golf balls, and beer cans,
Begin here and end here and in between,
Only the lilting funk of sweat meeting spring.