ACORNS AND AUTUMN LEAVES

I know a man who remembers time
by the year of the model of car.
Sitting in the back seat
in the middle of the night, the toy trucks
are left behind, buried in the dirt
in the front yard.
It’s the last time we’ll see each other.
Our separate routines
will become normal, the way to our front doors
will change.

Standing over the grave of my grandfather,
I learn why we don’t forgive easily.
And decades later, some people say,
“We still don’t know what we did wrong.”
Hard for any of us to know, it seems.
And looking back, it’s not the same
as when we were young.

In war, we pass briefly by
what could have been family. And in peace
it’s the same. But towns and cities fall
just like us.

(December 3, 2009)