SHADOW ON A CURB

 A boy I remember once sat on a curb,


 On a warm, sunny, day over forty years ago I say.


 Listening to the airplanes going by, fly so high,


 Hands rested on his face, a street and a place far away.


 He would stare from where he sat, a thinking child,


 I remember him well when he lost that smile.


 A car that no longer moved, the life in it lost,


 Now the memory of a man who sat at the wheel.


 A place and a street that exists till this day,


 A curb where once a boy no more dreamed and played.


 What has faded now is a man and a car,


 A boy whose aged more than a father who at one time


 Carried him on his shoulders.


 Now from the trees, only a shadow on a curb you'll see,


 A memory of a boy who sat and stared at a car driven


 by a father whom he can no longer see.


                Keith Garrett