Urban Memories Poem by B. V. Dahlen

A column of connected
Similar dwellings
Strode along the avenue
Fieldstone faces forward.

Upon those concrete steps
And fissured sidewalks
Cavorting children
Savored summer days.

Rising stepgrades
With a pebbled guess
Or skipping lightly
Above the spinning ropes

We watched the street lights
Blinking on above us
And cocked our ears
For chiming sounds of coming treats.

Then with a "Mother May I? "
We clutched a grimy coin
To meet the pealing vendor
Down on the distant corner

Before we raced to hide
Behind a neighbor's bush
With chocolate drips betraying
Our hidden places to the seeker.

Our chalked boxes numbered
We cast cement slivers
To decide our tallied hops,
And flew until

A tag would check our progress,
Too soon the calls would come
From Mom's in doorways
Gleaning us to dreaded baths

And bedtimes, never welcomed
As fitting finales
To those welcomed endless epics
Of urban summer days.