There I Am

by Sarah Dickenson Snyder

 
Walking on the leaf littered eternity
of Central Avenue, the queen of my neighborhood
past one stone castle & that Victorian house
where I first watched The Wizard of Oz
on the only color TV on that street.
I sat under a side table holding hands
with Nancy, those flying monkeys still wildfire
in my heart, & didn't one doctor say I had a heart
murmur & don't I often hear the murmur
of what I can't name. How close we all were
to the manatees in the clear water,
one looking me in the eye.
Nothing is hard to love up close.
I don't need a guidebook, but I've had to
dust off my report cards and the stacks of black
& white scalloped-edged photographs
uncover some code of dots and dashes
I didn't hear. I’m a detective now.
No longer the luckiest one.
There must be a trail & stone cairns.
My strong legs when my father asked me
to carry his backpack, My knees, he said.
It was heavy, yes, but I carried it all the way down.
That was another year that I was born.
I miss the swell of twilight, running home
and knowing dinner would be ready soon.


* * * * *
 
Sarah Dickenson Snyder lives in Vermont, carves in stone, & rides her bike. Travel opens her eyes. She has four poetry collections, The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), With a Polaroid Camera (2019), and Now These Three Remain (2023). Poems have been nominated for Best of Net and Pushcart Prizes. Recent work is in Rattle, Lily Poetry Review, and RHINO. sarahdickensonsnyder.com