In Looking Back

PAD Challenge day 27:For today’s prompt, write a looking back poem. Of course, some people just glance over their shoulders, and others stop and turn all the way around. Some look back in time and weigh their successes and failures, evaluate things they could do better. Some claim they never look back. Whatever your stance on looking back, capture it in a poem today.

The Harvest-apple tree on the old home place.
How well I remember its petal-snow, before the dirt floor was covered in golden fruit, gathered up in our cotton-dress 'baskets' carried to the house for apple goodies, but mostly canned apple sauce.

In time we all took that slow slope leading

From childhood’s home, past the gnarled apple tree

Standing post in the sun-dappled garden

Like a sprawling, echo-laden sentry

We did not recognize the honeyed spoon

Stirring the air where a big, blue sky-drain

Sipped summer’s long willow-song afternoon

Like sweet tea steeped in life’s Never Again

Youth’s come-and-get-me call tugged at our dreams

We did not know then, what we did not know

Perception fairly bursting at the seams

With everything we thought life had to show

So, one by one, each sibling slid away

First, from mother’s kind, cotton-apron knee

To the floor, to the door to ‘I want more’

Than four-walled, clock-stalled nevermore-will-be

In looking back, I lack the words to tell

If time could reverse, where I first would reach

But one thing I now recognize full-well

My, what a lot of lessons life must teach

© Janet Martin

…and still is!