Another dimension in the Park

Photo by Jeremiah Lawrence on Unsplash

Sometimes when I go back to visit my childhood home, I see some familiar places and they are like a palimpsest— memories over memories, covered with a thin layer of now.

Where I grew up,

we weren't the kind of kids

who had different jackets for different days.

There was the cold weather jacket,

the warm weather jacket,

and the raincoat

(although sometimes those two were the same

unless your Grandma or your favorite Aunt

vacationed somewhere rainy

and found you a colorful raincoat

with a hood shaped like a frog or a duck.)

Ida had a royal blue windbreaker with a snap at the collar,

elastic at the wrists,

and a drawstring tie at the waist.

When I go home and wander in the Park near her house sometimes,

I catch glimpses of it,

flashes of blue in the dark green caverns of the trees.

I feel a tug towards it, knowing--

If I follow --

I will tumble out of this life and into the forested nowhere,

to be embraced by the earth, held tight,

along with the decaying tennis balls,

the teenage boy-sized shoes,

the stray bits of discarded clothing.