WHEE!

Things were a better kind of different back then.

My cousins and I were dumped at Mama’s house

whenever the aunts and uncles wanted to go out

on the town. In the summer, some of us would

hike down to where that rock ledge gave birth

to a creek. The first pool was big enough for

preteens to get wet and splashy till the air sang

with our laughter Sometimes we’d take string

and a bent pin to fish for minnows. The nerd

called them “inferior fish,” and I still do.

When we got older, we’d follow that little waterway

for a mile or more through the woods and find all

kinds of adventure, treasures and wildlife. One of

the old timers once told us “water like that,

flowing over rocks and sand, is filtered clean

every fifty feet,” so when we got thirsty, we didn’t

think twice about drinking big gulps downstream

from a herd of cows. The bluff to the left was a

sixty-foot cliff with trees and muscadine vines

so we could swing out like Tarzan. Along the

gravelly shore were fossils of petrified wood,

crinoids, and arrowheads. Once we found a big

fat Cottonmouth who was not happy to see us.

Despite our best efforts, it lived, and so did all of us.

I was a stooped old man the last time I went there,

my face had seen too much, my nose bent, hands

tough and calloused, parts of me gone or broken.

The creek reminded me of a story I read about

Dorian Grey. I could only stare downstream now

at it’s banks embedded with a depravity of detritus.

Ugly is the product of unlovely people plunging

headlong into noise and speed, asphalt and cities,

full of warped thoughts, great piles of arrogance, and

garbage devoid of wisdom, with no time left for God

or beauty.

Author's Note

RAVIN' INK POEM
10/26/2024
Rt 66 in Alanreed (Gouge Eye) Texas
Prompt: Some small, haunting memory you have no one knows about

Reviews

[Lorry]

Isn't it the way, that people see beauty, grow easily bored and next thing you know, your special secret memory has been concreted to within an inch of its life and voila! A shopping mall replaces it!
I really don't get why peace and calm didn't catch on and in its place nerve shredding shrieks replaced the stillness and noise it out of existence.
Luckily though for me, I still like that quiet and only have to open my front door not to hear it.
A handy hint.... if you don't have to clap your ears at least once a week to find out if uou have went deaf or not, then you be too noisy and should cease and dissist immediately, because I might just mistake you for a deer and put your gas at a peep! 😃

[Pete]

was a different world back then for sure. i remember the woods where we played as kids - now cut down to build houses. there were parcels of land scattered about the neighborhood where old timers grew fruits and vegetables. there were lots of wells with hand pumps for water. the lot across the street with an incline was empty and we would go sledding there in winter - now a house sits on that lot. land has become a precious commodity and lord knows that they're not making any more of it. as time marches on we've become more and more detached from nature and from nature follows god. as i get older and see all the changes taking place it makes me sad. your write brought back many memories as well as some unfortunate, stark revelations.

[Vol]

Pete,
It is almost as though we have forgotten what is gone. I remember saying decades ago that any transitional time in history is at the least, fraught, and almost always violent. It has been getting worse and worse lately, and the depth of division and mistrust, even hatred may already be too far gone to stop.
We'll see...
Vol

[Pete]

agreed. i barely recognize things anymore. god help us.

[emmajoygreen]

Vol, those words are both beautiful and sad to the point of screaming. I learned touches of your past, more than likely as true as true, even with a touch of poetic enhancement.. say that because what is 'said' creates a certain type of magic, of youth and place and.. never to be forgotten. True bliss, with a lesson for a reader can only envy you with a smile. So finely written, of course - what is more.'Ugly is the product of unlovely people plunging headlong into noise and speed, asphalt and cities, full of warped thoughts'

[Vol]

EmmaJoy,
It is an easy thing to travel back to the times, people and places that made me. I have been blessed my whole life with little conflict, and strong encouragment to be myself. The las words i spoke to my father were how proud I was to be his son, his last words were "I love you, baby." All I eveer needed was a measure of tragedy, and I found enought of that. One thing i have learned is, You can't go home, because it isn't there." In America, virtally everyone moves into a different house every seven years, 11.7 times in their life, and it's called progress, destrouyng family farms until they are a lost industry, replaced by subdivisions and giant conglomerates with all their monster machines and chemicals... Mine was the last generation to have atlesat a toe-hold on agrarian life.
Thank you for this lovely revies...
Vol

[emmajoygreen]

For me, rural life is real life, at least without tall chimneys and in many places taller buildings, one can see the sky without too much interruption! Also, and admit to being biased - for 80% of the time, there is peace. Can make noise, trying making peace! I could say more!

Your father's last words surely must have been one the best, if not THE best gift you ever received.

[Vol]

EmmaJoy,
Too good... I never tell anyone, It's like too personal, and for people who don't know me, an eyeroll...
Vol

[emmajoygreen]

My typos are a disgrace! Your eyeroll deserves a prompt!

[Thomas W Case]

Superb work. The imagery brings this to life and paints a vivid picture. Well done, my friend.

[Vol]

Purely autobiographical about thy time that made me.

[Ken Simm.]

This is wonderfully evocative. Except my childhood was alone. This is classic.

[Vol]

My time with Mama and Papa made me. I could write books about a million tiny memories from their house like the smell of Singer sewing machine oil, dusty thread, and an oaken drawer in her pedal powered machine. I travel back to her whenever I see one of those... the smell is universal.

[Ken Simm.]

Smell is the most evocative sense I find.

[Vol]

I know, right, and there are so many secret little memories you don't even know are there until some smell turns on the light switch...