In the old neighborhood, where my father

Grew up, there was a hardware store, long gone.

He talks about it fondly, it must have been

More than a hardware store to him.

He talks of the wooden floor, aisles

Of nuts and bolts, gaskets and shade pulls, 

A case of pocket knives, and the owners

Who knew everyone by name. It sounds like

Something out of James Agee, but it was

Real to him, and now it's a realtors' office.

Beyond that, there was something 

Which he remembers even more fondly,

A doorway which led to an adjoing room,

A toy store full of model airplanes and dolls,

And in the front of the store, by the rack

Of magic tricks and Duncan Imperial yo-yos,

Was a red rocking horse, wooden and worn

Almost paintless by children like my father

Who rode it while the mothers shopped

For birthday presents and picture hooks.

He, my father, isn't nostalgic, and it isn't

That he misses it, rather, it seems to remind him

Of what he thinks of as a better time, rich

With baseball mitts and neat's foot oil,

Girls in skirts trying to stay modest

While hanging from playground monkey bars,

And kids who lined-up when they were told

To line up, and fathers who came home

After work, his father, to a martini,

And Walter Cronkite. His memories

Are very specific, and not without meaning

For me, for though I don't honestly know

What it is he does miss, I know what I'm missing.

I'm missing all of it, because nothing

From my childhood seems worth missing.

When we visit my grandparents, his parents,

And walk by the stores that he remembers,

Now gone, I get it, though I don't know how.

It was a time of post-war optimism

And pre-Vietnam schism, which divided

Him from his parents, and the demise

Of everything my father seemed to hold dear,

The values that went with the faded

Army surplus jacket he favored for a time,

And the optimism, his optimism, that went with it.

All of this seems to make him weary,

And he isn't old enough to be weary.

He's fought the good fight on all fronts

For so long, making a living, raising a family, 

And in the process losing everything of himself.

This old neighborhood, now devoid of charm,

Is confirmation that it was better, and it is gone.

We walk on, stopping at Starbucks for lattes,

Sitting and talking as the conversation shifts

From past to the present, from him to me, as we sip.