Anna, Do You Remember Our Troll?

Assignment:  Create an image:  a negative and a positive

The positive:  Anna, just three; happy to be with me, in Squaw Valley Park.

The negative:  Anna, just three; frightened as she could be, because of me.

Anna, my sweet Anna,

Do you remember our troll 

Who lived under the bridge in the park

Where you and I spent happy hours 

When you were very young?

This morning, as early as eight at best,

When the sun still hugged horizon's crest 

Under a sky yet tinged with dark,

I walked through our special park

And thought of you.

I passed by the bridge we used to cross,

Remembering how you would scurry

As fast as your little legs could hurry

Lest the troll beneath, disturbed from sleep,

Should toss us into the waters of the creek.

I really thought that you knew

The story I had fabricated wasn't true.

But when you were older you said

You used to tremble with dread,

Thinking the troll real.

Today  a  closed-for-repairs sign

Bars the bridge we considered  yours and mine,

And the rickity bridge of our private lore,

Replaced by a newer, sturdier span,

Will be no more.

So forgive me, my sweet Anna.

I thought of you today

And of the hours we shared. 

I hadn't meant to make you scared.

Going Home

[An attempt at using sound and assonance in a poem, to tell a story and describe an emotion.]

Like a lament from distant hills,
ever closer it came,
louder and louder still,
until it was a whistle, shrieking and shrill,
piercing the quiet countryside air.

A young boy, freckled and fair,
stopped short upon hearing the cry.
Then across sunlit field he raced,
and by tracks already throbbing,
waited to watch the train go by.

As it thundered past, atop one of the cars,
an old and tattered hobo sat.
Upon spying the lad, he lifted arm on high,
waved his crumpled cap, and shouted over the din:
“Goin' home, boy! At last I'm goin' home again!”

Within the boy stirred a feeling undefined.
Yet far too young was he to know the woe
of being long and far away from home.
Nor yet had he lived enough of life to ken
the joy of going home again.

To Alex

I've just been re-reading some of your poems.

They fill me with pride in your talent 

And spaun so many memories of you.

I remember how as littlest child you fussed and fumed 

 over wrinkled socks within your tiny shoes;

How there was no peace until shoes were removed 

 and socks made smooth.

I remember your protests and how you'd fidget

 over shirt sleeves wrinkled under your jacket.

Can any of us ever forget your cries from your carseat? 

 Help! I'm stuck! 

Forgive us now, for failing then to see

your ever restlessness to be free,

Be that as it may, Alex, suffer me to  say

I hope to live a bit longer yet  

 to glory in the pride of  all you will do,

 to share in further heights destined for you.