Post by Ron Wallace (Scotshawk) on Feb 5, 2008 0:42:01 GMT -5
Eastside Boys, We Ran[/b]
(For Don Tyree)
Eastside boys, we ran;
we ran straight up Northeast Second
to Mississippi to Texas to Alabama and Arkansas,
over the Santa Fe tracks to the stop sign on East Main.
We ran down gravel roads
that cut across our neighborhood, and past the old cemetery.
We rolled under barbed wire into pasture grass
with no roads to follow
we ran.
We ran from George Washington Elementary
to Roy Child’s Grocery Store;
we ran the bases and then back home
to widowed mothers and to moms who made us cookies
to fathers who drank too much,
and dads who taught us how to cast a fishing line
we ran.
We ran from poverty that stalked its prey
on our side of the tracks,
from pasts that trapped us in seines like minnows
in a shallow creek.
We ran from ghosts and self-fulfilling prophecies,
but never once from a fight.
We ran into the record books,
and we ran into the law,
to God, the Army and college
we ran into the world and into our lives;
we ran.
Eastside boys, we ran
and some of us are running still,
running out of time, out of space,
but running all the same into the fire and out of the flames
of a long-gone neighborhood.
We run
we run
faster than the rest.
(For Don Tyree)
Eastside boys, we ran;
we ran straight up Northeast Second
to Mississippi to Texas to Alabama and Arkansas,
over the Santa Fe tracks to the stop sign on East Main.
We ran down gravel roads
that cut across our neighborhood, and past the old cemetery.
We rolled under barbed wire into pasture grass
with no roads to follow
we ran.
We ran from George Washington Elementary
to Roy Child’s Grocery Store;
we ran the bases and then back home
to widowed mothers and to moms who made us cookies
to fathers who drank too much,
and dads who taught us how to cast a fishing line
we ran.
We ran from poverty that stalked its prey
on our side of the tracks,
from pasts that trapped us in seines like minnows
in a shallow creek.
We ran from ghosts and self-fulfilling prophecies,
but never once from a fight.
We ran into the record books,
and we ran into the law,
to God, the Army and college
we ran into the world and into our lives;
we ran.
Eastside boys, we ran
and some of us are running still,
running out of time, out of space,
but running all the same into the fire and out of the flames
of a long-gone neighborhood.
We run
we run
faster than the rest.
