By John A. McCabe
Unlike helpless sentinels on picket line, or workers in the plastic
They are empowered children peeking over the top of windowsills
Some mishap of time and place may do its other things with them
Now youth to run those city sidewalks, our parks of summer grass
In their time, the time to keep, the time to dance our truths
They are all of us and none of us at once petals in summer air
Their days aloft in the ease of flight beyond those windowsills.
Knowing that all was flowing and only now our memories still
When we are old and dare not forget urban friends’ perfections
Embraced by our worlds and to each other into memory bronzed
Gazing lifetimes in subway trains as the colors of our time to love
John McCabe, a lifelong writer in all genres, is an active member of the Writers Guild at the Pearl S. Buck Writing Center. His novel The Grey Pennies of Wars centers on his experience as a young soldier undergoing atomic bomb testing in Nevada and is actively seeking a publisher.
