That old swing-set
was young when I was young,
its shoulders fresh painted
and its swings not yet deep rust-set.
We made fast friends,
that old swing-set and I,
though he sometimes threw me from his shoulders
knocking my knees and dusting my hands
That swing-set’s hands are splintered
and I visit my old friend with calloused hands
to find his swings gone and his paint chipped
from when I was away those many, many winters.
I climb his side with a book in hand,
as I once did when I was younger,
and I read all afternoon with my old friend
in the shadow of the boy I was – now a man.
At DVerse, the prompt today is to write a poem recalling some specific thing or things from the past OR more generally about what evokes a memory or memories in you.
Photo by Tobias Kebernik on Unsplash
Seamus O'Shaughnessy, Jr. 
Wonderful!
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Thank you!
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Good job, and thanks for reminding me of my childhood swing.
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Of course, I’m glad my memory is shared, in some ways, by other people!
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This is beautifully done Evan. I love the way you take us back and forth from past and present. I love how you went back and spent some time with it. Well done.
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A good memory! Since we can only remember things from the present, it made sense to me to oscillate between past and present as I recollected 🙂
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Yes it is great to go back and revisit those places, even if only in our minds.
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Such a wonderful analogy for ageing – that old swing set.
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Thank you!
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I like that last line, recollecting Wordsworth for me, and the way the swingset’s ageing has mirrored yours.
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I love Wordsworth! Thank you!
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This is incredibly poignant, Evan… I really feel like I could be the one sitting there and reading instead of you…
❤
David
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Maybe, at some point in time, you were the one reading instead of me 🙂
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Beautiful – such nuances of nostalgia – moving like an abandoned swing in the wind. Some very telling lines not least
“We made fast friends”
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Haha, I’m glad you enjoyed the poem! It brought back even more memory as I wrote it!!!
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Awesome poem!I used to sit on a swing set in my apartment,and just while away the hours oscillating back and forth..just relaxed my mind 🙂
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The Old Swing-set is a poem / memory of such significance the man can revisit the boy. Nice.
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Thank you!
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You are one AND two AND three and so on years old. This poem is a great illustration of that concept 🖤
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