you took it for granted …

just assumed memory lane

would forever remain

your yellow brick road

overlooking, way back then,

those sleepy seeds borne on the

winds of time, sowing themselves

in between the cobblestones

and then all those little spearheads

the crabgrass unsheathing itself up underfoot …

choking the undergrowth

in an overgrowth primeval

and now you’ve gone missing in the outback

of your own hardening cerebral arteries, all your

hansel and gretel breadcrumbs disappearing

like hourglass-sand down the little rabbit holes

and you, needing a damn machete

to hack your way in circles through the foliage

of your own life’s back pages … unable to find

even the forest hiding behind the trees

Tom Lyford is a retired English teacher and lifelong resident of Dover-Foxcroft.