Down the Road we Live

Down The Road We Live

Like rockets sped my kids, up way ahead on bikes
Out of breath, behind in pace I hiked
Until they stopped a moment to look back
And waited, eager for exploring

Bikes set to rest, we turned and walked
On a road, dirt and overgrown
That disappeared in matted khaki-colored mounds
Our knees lifted high in uneven stepping

Partially buried among dead brush,
A softball!
White on top and yellowed from the ground,
Still hard, still round and everlasting

As if they walked away, just left it all as was
Like a man passed on who leaves his things behind.
On weeds bowed and dried where green shoots peaked,
We found the fossil still remaining

A hearty gust howled through
A concession stand decrepit
With no door, a rotted floor,
And a window, still inviting

A game forfeited
Void of losers
Six team benches, overturned
With no players out there winning

Three fields, wide with sturdy steel fences
Rearing missing home plate markers,
Protecting tall abandoned bleachers
Still waiting for spectators willing

To sit in wonder of once-played games
On the old ball fields,
Where the long-ago words of a coach
Still on the wind are carried, still encouraging

Authors note:
Allegories are narrative poems which are an extended metaphor, symbolic of an underlying meaning. In this poem, I used the story of the visit to the abandoned softball fields as a metaphor for the marks our lives leave in the world, for the legacies we leave behind after death.