An Avenue

This avenue, the same as ones nearby once rang to screams and laughter, hoots and calls, toy planes and cap rockets taunted the sky, and footballs kicked and bounced against shop walls. In rows, the children stood ready to run after the chant 'Please Mister Crocodile', and 'British Bulldog' always was good fun, they ran and chased, then sat to rest a while. No chalk on pavements, hopscotch now old hat, no snakes and ladders scrawled down someone's drive, the children sit indoors, no time for that, and stare at screens, 'till adulthood arrives. They waste the thing one day they'll miss the most their childhood, on the avenue of ghosts.