I know it all by name

Load the code every day, but the hardware remains the same.
The clock ticks passed. Soft things last?
I know them all by name.

Years ago, I stumbled in, followed Thanksgiving Day.
I learned some stuff.  In seven years...
Never knowing the length of that lesson's stay.

Mopped the floor, swept at night, key in history's lock.
Plate glass windows to the world,
Red dogs there, retail down the block.

Town has changed, store burned down, guess it was '84.
Sidewalk there, seems so bare.
But I recall, and others too, was D-town core.

Walk next door, grocery store, Monty cutting meat
Hollywood bar, an empty lot.
At the Sawmill Run, you might try something to eat.

Flanders Park, the town hall, library books line the shelves.
Firehouse, trucks of red, pool, and poker fed.
Old cop shop, bars one cell, blame no one, but them selves.

Goose on side that gallops on, blacksmith with but one leg,
Railroad is where highway runs,
Central's business not much now — a goose egg.

Thirty, forty, years ago, place where whistle blew at noon.
Today I ask, clouded past, misty eye
What all has changed, how it became so late, so soon?

Load the code, every day, hardware remains the same.
Clock ticks past. Software blasts.
I know it all by name.

__ Rob Carrigan

Photo of John Lambert, by Tim Pleasant