Filling in the Past

Growing up in my town of rocks and rivers,

knowing it for its frogs and ducks,

dogs barking and fish to be caught.

And all the time ignoring those commuting fathers

following their trivial routines,

waiting each morning for their usual trains-

mere appendages to the world around us.

Only now do I learn the windings of their lives,

why they walked with walls behind their eyes,

joined in holy deadlock to their houses

and the sad-eyed mothers of my friends.

Like most who are young in their million towns

I felt nowhere else was that wonderful

as I skated on the frozen ponds of winter

or swam in summers of locusts whining,

guitar plink and dog infinitely wise

while moving vans reamed out the tidy houses

turning my friends to scribbled greeting cards.

Now stories and rumors I'd never heard

finally explain how their families crumbled-

pregnant maids and disappearing wives,

proper ladies caught in church choir scandals

or commuting fathers who missed the last train home

clandestining in cars, or boats turned upside down-

rumors that have taken years to reach me,

reshaping all the memories I thought unchangeable,

turning all that background music of my life

to discord.