Looking back into the Cul-De-Sac

I wrote two poems on Tuesday, but I’m just going to share one with you today. You might be familiar with the feeling it describes if you had siblings growing up. Or if you can still remember the staircase of your childhood home.

 

♦

Now in new roams, and wearing down
different boards, slowly
growing up;

Although many years since the crashes sounded out,
the footprints still echo, still the barefoot stamping
battles on, how in fights and squabbles our feet
would shoot us up the staircase, blazing in a baby rage
soon abandoned after the door slams.

But now, our feet, grown too big
for steep terrace steps and charging around;

with crooked nostalgia, in reply to my remembering
tiny loud feet stomp on in my sleep.

♦

What do you think? For me it’s about childhood feeling far away, and family being far away, and how when you choose to remember so many times, you’re slightly changing the memory each time, and you can feel it. It’s also about marrying the striking difference of how things were, with how they are now, to accept how things are going to be from now on.

I don’t spend all my time in melancholy wonderings, I promise. Finding myself with the time and space to reflect like this after some big life changes is really a blessing. Getting to share it and talk about it with you, even more so!

As always, would love to hear your thoughts and reflections on the poem and what it conjures for you.

Have a good afternoon, and be lovely.