The Butler Pennsylvania Poems

Setting Foot

When I was a boy my compass said:
Main Street points North
where parades come from
marching up at the Court House,
and Brady Street points West
along the route the circus takes
from the train yard to the fairgrounds.

Where those lines crossed
my world opened up
and expanded to the edge of town
and the woods beyond,
coordinates between which
I staked out and claimed
Eden as my own,
lived in it, that time-free realm,
but then, growing self-reliant, left—
forgetting what I had
until some unquenchable yearning
drew me back
to where those lines crossed.

And I returned to the Eden that once was,
knowing I could never find it again,
yet I would live within its bounds
with the boy in me
who had known and seen.
Now I could hope and believe
and wait for the gate to open
to an Eden grander yet
than the one I once possessed
in those guileless boyhood days
of that first beguiling quest.