Albright's Road

A reflection on my Great Grandaddy.

An old man raises his hand

An arthritic hello to passing cars

On a road that bears his name.

It is hard to know who came first:

The man or the road?

They have watched each other grow old.

Time has spared neither in its passing.

There is a lot less hair and hay

Than there used to be.

Subdivisions bisect 

Both land and heart.

The road connects highway and country road,

Unknown unless you know where to turn,

A tertiary vein five generations wide

And ninety-seven years long.

Black-Eyed Susans and Queen Anne's Lace 

Crowd to the very edge of the asphalt,

memories whipping wildly

In the windswept eddy of another passing car.

A fat bee drones among the roadside blossoms,

Sucking on nectar,

Drawing up echos of his children's laughter

And his wife's voice.

The hydrangea she planted leans its blue blooms 

Against the orange brick of the house they made a home,

Where he sits, waiving at passing cars,

on a road bearing his name.

Reviews

[Matilda 3000]

Beautiful poem... and flows along smoothly. "time has spared neither in its passing"... ah, how true that is!