Fading Sounds, and Lost Memories
Creaking springs of screen door
hinges.
The spring's stretches sets off it's singing
And with the
impact of the old door's closing.
The hook latch rattles against
it's catches,
In just a second or two though, it finally settles
down.
Moms hollering, “You Kids! Get in or stay out!”
Us heading “out”, with a whoop and then a shout!
The crackling of an old AM radio,
To the lightning flashes of a distant storm.
Listening to a baseball game.
While fiddling the turning dial, all around,
Trying to catch, a little more of the game,
As the thunder storm rolled on, and then it came
The signal fading out, then wafting back stronger.
And me hoping to catch the entire 9th inning,
If the storm would hold off just a little longer,
Ice cream freezer's, the old fashioned kind,
With no annoying sounds, of an electric motor's whine.
Parents talking across the neighbor's back fence,
Us hearing, “Why don't y'all come on over then?
Happy children playing a-way on down the street.
Hide and Seek, or perhaps, Red Rover, if you please?
Cicada's singing in the salt cedar trees,
Traffic swishing by, outside on the street,
Rising and a falling in a steady crescendo.
Through our church's screened windows, replete.
An oscillating fan's swinging back and forth,
Waiting for one to sway slowly back our way,
Sounds outside seemed magnified by the failing night.
Dogs barking, just to bark, two or three blocks away
An airplane's distant receding buzzing's,
Somewhere a-way up there, lofty in flight.
Sounds often lost in the hubbub of the day.
Carry so clearly, in the stillness of the night.
The steady beat of Grandma's old kitchen clock,
Chiming the late hour, saying, “tic toc – tic toc”
The deep throbbing drone of an old attic fan.
The honky-tonk sounds of a distant garage band.
Most of these sounds are things of the past.
Other's are now shut out, by sealed glass.
Storm doors, and houses with triple glazed windows,
Our noisy devices, all whirring in crescendo ,
“Surround sound”, and "climate control",
Shut out the sounds we all used to know.
Drowning us all in a sea of white noise,
The chatter, and clatter outside,
The happy play of the girls and the boys.
These sounds we once heard from dusk 'till dawn.
Are dying out now, with barely an audible moan,
They are fading fast away, almost altogether gone.
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