Hard Frost on an Old Brown Buick

Hard Frost on an Old Brown Buick

The Buick had sat at the far edge of the yard for years next to the high grass
Many a harsh July and August sun baking her deep red lacquer to a cocoa brown
Her split front windshield as clouded as a hot cup of coffee with too much cream
Cruel summers, cold spring rains, winters tough as the folks who lived nearby

Her youth spent as a family friend, never complaining, never straining
A straight eight that once purred under her chrome adorned bonnet
Trusty and strong, four doors filled with adventure waiting down the road
Now tired and worn, as though she had once carried the weight of the world

Gently put out to pasture years ago only to sit and rust from lack of attention
A great change from her weekly grooming, a vacuuming, a wash, a waxing
How she loved to have her oil changed, the regular lubing a personal favorite
The touch of a craftsman’s grease stained, wrench filled hand eased her burden

Days, turned to years gone as she sat lonely in the yard, a curiosity at most
The occasional young boy who would look, perhaps touch her now and then
Oft chance to climb inside her, wrap his small hands around her Bakelite wheel
Dreaming of where he might take her, how people would look at them and smile

Making loving noises as he imitated the sound of her now locked straight eight,
Shifting her through her gears as they drove to places far away and imagined
Smiling deep inside, she felt the gentle touch again of warm and loving hands
She provided a smile for a young man once again, if only for a few moments

Her last few years were more like visiting a tombstone of a distant relative
Fewer visitors with less remembrance and sadly less meaning
On a warm summers night you could almost hear her crying in the moonlit sky
Slowly wasting away, a mere curiosity at her best, an eyesore at her worst

This autumns’ first hard frost had different ideas for her, perhaps a last hurrah
Early morns trip to her replacement and an early rising sun played her all anew
Her dark brown paint covered in the fine silver that only Gods’ hand can paint
Feathery, scalloped, swirled like fine silver service, renewed and lovely again