The lost street

I have lost my old street

Where we’d play with our feet and our hands

Dust, mud all over looking and searching

For the hidden ball, big or small

That went off the boundary wall

Or the bar post, screeching and howling.

Leave our study books at eight in the evening

In black out bliss we’d come out, chat and sing

Back then, we had homes where

Someone would always be there

If not our parents, there’d be neighbors

We’d look upon as our uncles or aunts next door

The lane that was my own

In time, I see it there, yet gone.

Children still play in parks

Without unhealthy dust or mud

Balls, big or small are not indecent

To crash window glasses

There’s no power cut

From study, no escapade.

I came back after years to my street

Now rich, with visible wherewithal,

But the boy in me with the same eyes, lost it

To growth in time, different and oddball.