The Old Wall

The yellow wall is stained with smears of black fungus and is damp with the rain. Their smiles bright and sunny, starched in dew like the early morning lily. Laughter floats around in the wet air over the walls onto the garden and along the road. They have gathered, at the week's end when there is a sunday to look at and a saturday evening to live. Movies, girlfriends, forwards, local gangs, politics and humor find discussions. Plans for the next party are due and the budget for the liquor needs a sponsor.

Their eyes are wide, brimming with excitement, sarcasm, supidity and the thought of a childhood that is about to end. They dig, sometimes, into the past, shovelling out the assignments, job worries, careers, to reach a time when their was a clearer sky to gaze into and a lighter heart to laugh. There exists a time somewhere, within each heart that longs, for the smell of a baked potato, for the silent shimmer of a christmas crib or the alpen glow of the diwali lamp.

It must be somewhere, beneath the layers of gravel that have covered the playground, above the sky covered with clouds, within the hearts heavy with experience, a childhood, lost.