Lambert Field
I found this again when I did a Google search for my name. I wrote it in for a creative writing class a long, long time ago — but for some reason, they still have it on the Web. I can’t remember if I ever shared it before, so I thought I’d post it here.
-John
Lambert Field
by John Marcotte
No fence enclosed our yard.
(My parents read their Frost.)
Nor did a fence surround the yard behind ours.
And so our house marked a crossroads
on maps never drawn,
except in the minds of child cartographers
who knew the quickest ways home from park or pool,
without the encumbrance of an automobile.
A perpetual stream of children wound its way
past our door.
Sometimes stopping.
Often not.
Always there.
We lived in the suburbs
out near the airport,
perhaps once a month or more,
a jet would come too close
and rattle the windows with man-made thunder.
I remember the delicious taste of metal
from the water in the hose.
The smell of dryer exhaust mixed with honeysuckle
hung thick in the moist Missouri air.
We would roll down the hill,
race back to the top,
and roll down again,
until we were drunk with vertigo.
Some nights I would lie
looking out at the stars
the soft, thick zoysia grass
cushioning my head.
or I would watch the lightning bugs,
eddy and whirl,
performing the dance of Oberon and Titiania.
* * *
Airports must expand.
I’m told they pay a fair price
whey they buy a house.
They demolish it, of course,
to keep out the bums.
They fill in the foundation,
and sod the ground,
leaving behind a maze of twisting streets
leading nowhere.
No children cut through our yard now.
The park is gone.
The pool lies empty.
There are no more homes.
The only thing that fills the emptiness,
are the sounds of mourning,
as jets shriek overhead
and the empty ground screams back in response.
16 Mar 2007 John 2 comments
