A simpler time—
The neighborhood houses lined the street,
interspersed with small family farms.
Ours was a gray ranch.
Nothing about it stood out,
like all the other homes of the working fathers.
So little time was spent inside them.
Barbed wire fences kept the pastures in check,
but not always the cows—
or the five of us.
We were an unlikely mix;
our friendship formed by the proximity of our homes.
We wiggled under on our bellies,
trying to avoid the shock,
in search of hickory nuts and buttercups,
mudpies and cow pies.
It was there we spent our days climbing the oaks,
making forts from downed limbs,  
skating the frozen ponds,
while our mothers, at home,
never worried about our whereabouts.
The days sprawled wide and long
until the streetlights called us home.


© by Angela Hoffman.
Used with the author's permission.