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February 22, 2015

 

Interchange

 

Highway 30 interchange is different now

than it was thirty-some odd years ago

these mans eyes see it as the child did not

age must do things to a persons memories

that, and bulldozers, shovels and snow

 

the restaurants are no longer there

the wounds of their removal lie hidden

their former existence merest scars

recent snow obscures, purifies pain

all that remains of the forlorn boy outside

a fading remembrance of a joke gone bad

his no-worse-than-yours filth no longer stands

between his hunger and its satisfaction

his hunger long forgotten by better meals

but how they must have laughed inside, warm

to not have noticed the leaders joke was not

a joke, but truth, to him who sat its butt

outside, cold, alone in the late autumn chill

promising a colder and lonelier winter

how much fun they must have had, inside

to not have seen his absence, note his pain,

that even when returned, heading home again

no words were spared to soothe his fear

that those he loved he could not trust

 

they take scant seconds now, these memories

triggered by a bridge, a curve and an emptiness

as the man traverses his past with his today

his duty calling him east, to others futures

what no longer stands, stand as bleak reminders

of a pain too large yet by forgiveness healed

 

heading west once again, homeward bound

recalling what has been, what is, what will be

faith, like snow, turns wounds to scars

 

life moves on

 


Interchange

A poem by Peter Rhebergen

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