Three Friends

After so many years I come walking through our field
The paint on the barn still chips from its northern exposure
The toboggans of our winters are gone, and slap of ball to glove
no longer echoes in the summer.

I could not come earlier because I was chasing life and
the flames of youth were warm and fiery in other places far from here.
So many aspirations, some achieved, many abandoned.
But not bad for a kid from Haverhill.

Above the grass I see the houses of childhood friends,
two of them are my brothers for life whom I met near this place.
I imagine that our souls are three little boys sledding together,
crashing down Dynamite Hill and skimming the frozen basin.

We were riders who experienced moments of beauty
When the ice would crack and the wind would howl,
it was all around us. There is still a privacy here that I love.
It is a hard thing is to say good-bye to memories.

I stand on the castle road, weeping for the generation passing.
Fred, Grace and Leo have left footprints here.
I am crushed because they cannot help us anymore.
But I will return because there is something continual, eternal.