the sun splashing all around poem by Michael Estabrook

the sun splashing all around

Waiting out in the backyard

I notice the grass is cut short and neat,

and the wasp nests

that once hung like proud stalactites

from beneath the gutters

had been knocked down and smashed

into unregal piles of pulpy cardboard,

and he’d built a pretty wooden fence around

a tree. There, listening to familiar neighborhood

sounds of children and vehicles, and slamming

screen doors, I thought of when I

was a child cutting grass

in my grandfather’s backyard,

then resting on his stoop sucking

on the ice cubes left in the cold wet

lemonade glass, sniffing the air

as the smells of my grandmother’s sizzling cooking

inside drifted outside to mingle

with the fresh tangy warmth of grass clippings,

the sun splashing all around.