Click to enlarge photos.
Explorers
Sitting up past midnight, we search our mind for facts,
parting long grasses of the past for long-forgotten pacts
of secrets kept from parents and long-forgotten games:
“New Orleans” and “Send ‘Em” *. We comb our minds for names.
Of talents left to childhood, like flips off monkey bars.
Adventures dreamed on rooftops and the back seats of cars.
Favorite childhood dresses and jokes pulled on our folks.
Afternoons in Mack’s Cafe, sipping on our Cokes.
Hot beef sandwiches at Fern’s and running up the stairs
to avoid Mom’s fly swatter aimed at our derrieres.
Childhood dramas staged in trees or in our backyard lawn.
Teenage slumber parties that stretched out into dawn.
We journey through old albums, searching photos for
any tiny detail that will open up a door.
Each time I come to visit, we remember a bit more
on these safaris of the mind that we both adore.
*These are the names of childhood games. Did anyone else play them?
For the Word of the Day challenge: Exploring
I have similar photos but I noticed you are all wearing blue bathing suits. Must be a sister thing❤️
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We had come from three different states to visit my parents in Tucson. It was pure coincidence that we all had blue suits and that my mother snapped that photo. It’s the only photo of all three of us together since I was a little girl!
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love this poem, sounds like me.
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Nothing like being with someone who has known you your entire life.
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Lovely poem and precious photos.
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You are such a dear, Dolly.
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You are a dear yourself, Judy!
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I love that “safari of the mind” line! That’s what it feels like I am doing as I try to get information about family photos.
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Such wonderful warmth in this poem!
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Photographs are so good for stirring memories. I don’t know those games
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Gotta catch a plane. I’ll teach them to you when I get to Missouri and get my computer back if you promise to play them at least once afterwards!!!
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🙂
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That is such a warm and lovely poem about family, and resonates in parts, love those old photos too, some innocence, but I see mischief too.
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You looked closely, I can tell! Thanks, P.V.
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I did indeed, and, pleasure
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