It passes me by
This faded, untouched, overlooked piece
Filled with longing.
The stories it could tell!
if it had lips to speak
Its handwriting looks calligraphic
Old-fashioned, another time, some other place.
It strikes me as Hungarian
for no particular reason
as I have yet to step foot in that land
and my own roots trace back to other well-trodden parts of the Old Country.
I’ve passed it by
On numerous occasions
dressed in pretty skirts and fancy heels
running around to nowhere in particular
Hints and twists
I catch a glimmer from its direction on moonless nights
It shines with an intensity
somewhere from within
back when it was The Place to Be
Now it’s just forgotten.
Or perhaps,
not quite
As I call it out
Like folklore that believes
when you speak you give words power
Then I too shall place the power in what once was
so that you and I may witness
Those glory days all over again.
Had it been merely a sign in the window?
Or was it a prestigious marquee
Now this piece I pass by on my way to this-and-that
those nights when I linger too long.
Time, holding its hand –
together they laugh in my direction
skipping off to where they need to be.
We all talk about those glory days.
We all long to get back to a time when things were better.
Hindsight what it is,
the past always seeming better than what it really was.
I cannot resurrect you,
glimmer from the past.
I cannot relive your glory days
or relive my own.
I can only pass you by.
Stop and pause –
And dream.
In dreams you shall live on.
From: The Sign in the Window: 2011 Y-City Writers’ Forum Writing Contest
Published by: Y-City Writers’ Forum
2011 edition
© Copyright 2011 ~ Lori Ann Kusterbeck
Sincerely, Lori 