Afternoon sun in my hometown.
Yellowing the rooftops of houses from my childhood,
Homes I saw en route to school, day after day.
Their fragile love and humanity so apparent.
On frigid mornings, Christmas lights and tacky lit-up plastic Santas and Reindeer rolled by, a personal parade for my grade-school eyes.
I took them in, their porches, their lawn ornaments, their wind-chimes,
And they steadied and calmed me.
I have always had an affinity for the strong broad slants of afternoon sun
Somehow companionable and ancient and unknowable at once.
In the rush of maturation and frenzy of the quick mean world
I know I have lost sight of this sun, these homes, this steadiness.
There's an added weight to this sight now, the weight of years,
but now, perhaps, a recognition, a likeness.