Harkening

By Michael Estabrook

. . . is he living in the past
he wonders
when life was simpler?

As the present continues sliding into a more and more
uncertain and dangerous –
let's be honest and say foreboding – future
I find myself harkening back (harkening? seriously?)
to a more comfortable past – 

where I'm dating my girl picking her up in my new
1966 Bahama Blue VW Beetle
taking her bowling, to the movies
dancing with her in the high school gym

where my brother and I are working at The Doc’s
caring for all those animals

where I'm a star on the gymnastics team
lifting weights with Tony and Ed

where the future is stretching out before me
like an exciting, mysterious road
of possibility and wonder
and I have all the time in the world.

Michael Estabrook’s most recent collection is Controlling Chaos: A Hybrid Poem (Atmosphere Press, 2022). Retired now writing more poems and working more outside, he just noticed two Cooper’s hawks staked out in the yard or rather above it which explains the nerve-wracked chipmunks. He lives in Acton, Massachusetts. https://michaelestabrook.org/.