ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS
Sequence: 4
HERE
Here where the alleys cross all the ground has been asphalted
over for parking behind the houses that have become businesses.
This used to be where children played, the plot of vegetables
was laid out, backyard chickens scratched. The twenties,
perhaps. "Ja-Da" reproduced phonographically floated outside
through the screen. And earlier? Horse hoof clops, buoyant
confidence of the Christians, class contention, the rail lines
coming to the center of town. Before that, grieving over the
Civil War that had been cheered forward from all the porches
around, soldiers parading away. And even before, taking over
from those who had been marched out of sight, saving an
occasional thought such as Indian Creek for them, otherwise
refusing to remember. And then those long millenia backward
we scarcely hope to know, the time before men when a shaggy
beast pressed a hoof here or a dragon strode. The time this
spot lay under the sea accumulating a fine dust of tiny bodies
into mud and then rock. And this spot was here when it was all
hot gasses or a space of nothing, this spot here where the
alleys cross.