Any Small Town

Before I understood how life was a weave of intricacies My town was a wonderful world to serve my childish fantasies. I was a young and healthy lad a source of mother’s pride and joy with sun bleached hair and sky-blue eyes. just your average wide-eyed boy On summer days I could run free over hills and through fields of grain played outside in times of sunshine and inside whenever it rained I loved to hunt and fish the creek played in the streets because I could In my naive idealism. the outside world was kind and good My world was from the northern hills and south as far as I could see About twenty square miles of everything A curious boy wanted it to be Right there smack dab in the middle of it sat a little town they called Wakenda Just a few houses and a tiny store the grandest place anyone ever saw A place where fathers manicured their lawns and neighbors waved or greeted each other There was no need for privacy fences People treated each other like brothers Where the men drove away every morning to places that I did not know where in my mind some place that was exotic but I can’t say that I ever did care Hard-working mothers stayed home all day long, cooked the breakfast, lunch, and dinner with ease hung their fresh washed laundry out on clothes lines and let our underwear swing in the breeze We played kick the can right out in the street Or chased lightning bugs out in the backyard Hide and seek could cover a couple blocks So could freeze tag or ghost in the graveyard In that magical village where I lived I knew everyone and they all knew me Never a worry about anything I was safe, loved, innocent and naive But then, when I was nearly ten years old It was the first time that I witnessed death a boy, just a few years older than me an accident had stolen his last breath His death was like a stone tossed from a hand into the pool of my reality Its ripples spread out from my soul’s center with each wave a truth was revealed to me. I could not view life through rose colored glass the youthful playground was taken from me My life had become very small and cramped just a shell of what it once used to be I saw the evil that surrounds us all hiding in the shadows just out of sight The town I loved now had blurry edges life decaying behind an opaque light Still the same town with all the same people living their lives as if nothing had changed Why had they not noticed the dust and dirt and just how life had been so rearranged What had started as just tiny ripples had now turned themselves into foaming waves that smashed my innocents against the rocks and helped to mold my adolescence days