The Linnet's Wings | Page 62

WINTER ' FOURTEEN Childhood on the River Circa 1960 by Ronald E. Shields There was the pretzel cart on the wide sidewalk. The ice cream truck, Good Humor, trolled all summer. Johnny the donut man was always the favorite. Slow planes circled the airfield. Their engines’ thrumming rare and low as hummingbirds. My brother could catch squirrels and sparrows in a trap he made from a box, a stick and some string. A boy named Glen could hit a baseball over the roof ofour two story row house. When the rough kids chased us from the ball field because they wanted to drink beer we played stickball in the street. In school we learned to duc k and cover. Nuns taught the old math and did what they could to turn the unfortunate lefthanders. God still spoke a foreign language. Sunday mass was a solemn ghost story, strange with the mysterious allure ofGod’s body trapped in an atom ofbread. People were beginning to ask questions in loud voices. Young men were refusing to die for reasons they did not understand. Music became a sign ofgrace, poetry the howl ofan anthem. The world invaded our homes. Television broke down the walls. Childhood slipped through our fingers, became our wake in the river – the long slow river making its own blind way to the sea. The Linnet's Wings Poetry, Winter 2014