My grandparents' old house in Detroit, completely remodeled.
You can see the tree in the background. Beyond that tree is the alley.
Alley AdventureYou can see the tree in the background. Beyond that tree is the alley.
The Alley behind our grandparents' house
was intriguing to my brother and me.
was intriguing to my brother and me.
The grown-ups didn’t want us to go there,
but he knew how to unlatch the back gate,
Sshhh…very quietly, so it wouldn’t squeak.
We tiptoed onto the graveled road.
A sweet yet acrid smell filled the air;
it was a strange, forbidden world.
This day, we discovered a horseshoe print,
embedded in a piece of hidden pavement,
shadowed by the tall grasses growing wild,
fighting for a piece of the dappled sunrays
that played upon the broken cement.
“Only one print,” Stephen whispered,
“Must be from Pegasus.”
Voices formed words in an unknown tongue
and floated from a large window of an old house
behind an unpainted wooden fence,
“Sssshhh! Ghosts!” he whispered.
I bent down to pick up a weapon,
a broken shard of brown glass
“This is a piece of magic glass, Jeanne,
from a land faraway… Put it down!
We don’t know what evil powers it might have.”
Reluctantly, I tossed the shard.
No magic today… no spilling of blood.
A quick run to the old wooden gate,
and we were back on Grandma’s garden path,
with freshly cut grass, wildflowers and roses,
our absence unnoticed, our memories enriched.
Jeanne I. Lakatos 2011