The sun used to come up at eight…it’d be dark up until that time…I’d lay in bed and wait for its first glimmer of light…exposing the neighborhood for what it is…debris on the ground around dumpsters in alleyways…boarded up houses…cars up on concrete blocks with tires removed…broken windshields…bare trees…leaves missing from autumn’s death march…at first the season shows beauty and romance only to be followed by cold and reminders of what has been in the past…winter sends greetings…

Today there was hope at twenty after seven…an old man was sweeping his front porch in early morning brightness…kids were skipping to the bus stop…a mom cried out…,You forgot your lunch money…,the chubby child dashed back home to be kissed on the forehead and be sent back on his way…

Soon green will come and this brown will be gone for awhile…awhile…death leaves us for a period of time only to return…we run through spring as if we were carefree lovers…old become young again…songs being hummed as we walk through Foster Park…winter’s woes gone…

But cars are still up on blocks…houses boarded up…trash around dumpsters…broken bottles…chicken bones…a mangy dog roams the streets…yet there is a solitude in the evening breeze…before cop cars sound their sirens and ambulances carry victims away…these are midnight sounds…rhythms of summer…we wait for fall…back to beauty before death…

And another year has passed….