Memories of Home
joe holtaway
With talk of rolled out rugbeaten summer days, climbing red worn bed ladders, we grew into our shoes in a room at the top of those old stairs. The house over the bridge. It shot up proud behind the concor trees beside the roads that rounded the sheds and tall garden walls. Our Mum hadn't grown up here, but miles away in the city. We came, my brother and I, so she could stand still awhile, I guess.
Summers saw their way to Autumns then the Winters came; rolling up cold over the bridge to hold our house. All the same - one hundred years of bricks - pushed into place and set - sure kept the rooms together and warm, though the gates in the fields froze. A world of white balloon clouds bursting over us. Then bright we warmed and spring was coming again soon. We were in the house over the bridge until the very day we moved away. Singing songs in a loaded car, I learned what family was for and remade my memories of the homes we'd had.