perhaps, interesting

First day of school for the kids around here. Summer isn't faded yet, but it truly is the edge of autumn. I'm going to kick myself if I say that "When I was a kid" line.  But still.

I do recall the air was a bit chill and there was that September smell of turning leaves. Remember new notebooks and elmer's glue?  Kids here, just passed our house, going home. One month earlier than we did WHEN I WAS A KID.

Going to school, I remember only as a kind of crunch and holding my bones sqeezed in somehow. All kids are islands. We'd go inside and the halls were rush hour traffic and there were rooms to find. Starch and sizing in our clothes and shoes squeaked, socks fell, pencils needed sharpening.

It was evening I remember best. There would be westerns on tv come nighttime. And first, the winding down of the sun, shadows taking the hills and the trees, I know now, full of spirits between school's out and bedtime.

We'd walk down Dyer and up McCarty. I'd get home and head for the woods. I had chores, didn't I? Guess I did, but I don't remember them as chores. Probably thought of them as helping out. Helping out by getting in some wood and carrying some water. Sometimes, I'd bake the biscuits and it's still the thing I think of doing when it's raining and the leaves are tinged with the thought of the edge of summer.

Wonder if I could write a poem about it.

Nope.

I'd need you to give me some random words to start.  They're like sourdough starter. Wait. I'll grab a book and open and point to a line. That works.

Words are: perhaps and interesting

After school

This is interesting perhaps,
in that way things are
when set in another era,
We were remnants, my family,
so that we were not in tune
with our peers
who went home to indoor plumbing
and kicked off shoes inside doors,
and set tables, and aimed themselves,
like notched arrows.