Grand Avenue Park

A teenager sits in solitude where I sat 

staring at Port Gardner Bay 

hard to believe it was so many years ago

The route of the peace march

the candlelight vigil against the war 
on the lawn of the senator now gone
and mostly forgotten 


The house where Alice lived 

where she bathed the soot off my body 

and cleansed my soul

First loves, sweet kisses, midnight ecstasy
fishing off the dock

it seemed as if the clock stood still 


We would always be young and wild
but wild then is tame now
so much not the same now 


Though the houses still stand, others are crammed between 

the mill is gone, the air is cleaner 

but so much is meaner and meaning less

That kid looks alone
and sad as I did
sometimes


But we didn't doubt then that we'd grow old, settle down 

and this town we called home would always be the same 

even as we and it grew

More older people walk, more younger people ride 

we hoofed the tracks for miles, for a day with our lines in the bay 

and thought little of it

I may have known that woman with our high school sweater on 

heavy today, walking slowly up the steps past the sunning calico 

perhaps so, once, a long time ago

What once was wealthy or at least middle class is poor now 

poverty row

it was so many years ago

Am I really doing what my parents did 

focused on older times, days gone by 

and thinking those were the best days of our lives?