So… he looked on, watching from afar the imagery of family. Now alone, sitting in place on an old cranky stubborn porch, eighty-one years of tears laughter and memory/smiled; his smiled gleamed through the haze and humidly of another summer day: a day that reminded him of his younger years when the joy in many eyes gathered for a day of barbecue and rejoice
in his voice, as his raspy cough briefly interrupted the moment, was the song of an elderly man missing the days of innocence but briefly in this time, in the sight of the young boy he now studied from across the street he saw a familiarity. His vision saw support and togetherness;
his hearing heard the song of compassion and in the charcoaled flavored heat, his heart felt what he thought was forgotten;
the genius and destiny of hope. In his life he has seen once inspiring brick-layered sidewalks become the mask of crime that has kidnapped a neighborhood once proud. He has seen the dreams of children become temporarily paralyzed by the heights of poverty and many visions of fear. He watched in silence over all these years
but the tears of his mind has always been vocal.
The shackles of osteoarthritis that now held on to his bones and the slight battle with old-aged deafness that now challenged the vibration of harmony and not even the parade of high blood pressure marching through his veins could keep him from feeling the pain and decay
of days passed. But as he looked on at the sight of burgers and hotdogs sizzling on the grill; as he looked on at the pleasantries of young and old joining in good times and fun playing the games of life; as he looked on and lived again through the body language of the young boy who now looked back at him
he saw the glimpse of renewal in a community holding on to the aspects of a neighborhood’s inheritance. For the first time in many decades, he saw the enjoyment in dancing trees that waltzed in the breezes of tomorrow; he felt shades of sweat trickle down his bronzed almond skin that was the welcomed condensation of happiness and he smelled a renewed energy of genetic fortitude that was family all in the aroma of summer cooking --