I Remember

I Remember

I remember there was snow that day.

A little boy was alone in the park.

The air was still and the swings didn’t move.

The dusty boy didn’t remember his name.

 

TV news reported the end of the world.

Snow crunched beneath the boy’s tiny shoes.

The dusty boy climbed into a swing.

Cold chains snapped, as the boys sat, smiling.

 

And Jesus walked down Broadway Avenue.

Second chances are a fool’s second choices.

There, Jesus sat on a curb at Broadway and Vine,

and watched the dusty boy sweep through the snow.

 

The TV reporter cried at the news, collapsing,

and scrambled, quickly, through the angel’s mist.

His Catholic murmurings made the six o’clock shock,

and dusty’s eight-year laughter drifted into memory’s deep.

 

Monsters spin on carousel candy, and,

Turnstile dreams are locked in parks, dead yesterdays.

Higher and higher, the boy swings, laughing,

while the newsman sat on the seesaw, wondering.

 

A perfect day for a perfect end.

His name didn’t matter and the boy didn’t care.

The end was swift, too quick to report.

And Jesus stepped behind the swing, pushing the dusty boy …  higher and higher.

Johannes Fahrion