Story at 11

In the sun faded concrete
Amidst erosion of experiences past
Exists imaginative landscapes
Ridged
Veined
Webbed with etchings
Only the child past
The child's older self can see

A poet dreams perhaps
While the quill urges scratchings
Yet passing from sidewalk to sidewalk
With eyes linking mazes of yesteryear
Onto today's winter season of freeze and thaw
There appear foot-engraved maps one wishes never to forget
The arid deserts once fertile with life's aquifers
Promising perhaps only one watering hole
Which would do...

But

Such a map languishes
Save the persuasiveness of perception's dessert
The sweet imagination of quiet meandering
Through ownership's reality
The calm of Time's patience
Flowing beneath anxious appetite
In trusting respite

Yet

For some
Such consideration accelerates rampant erosion
Where one's sidewalks become highways
Where languid pace giving reward of flowered fragrance
Succumbs to fast lane limitless speed quests

For a few

The obdurate wordsmithing of honesty
The melodious resonance of simple rewards heard first in one's head
The vision of every man's capacity to challenge an unjust status quo
Becomes the radical imagination feeding "what if?"

Such courage of preference
Will survive the everyday mediocrity of tonight's
"Story at 11."