sons and daughters of the morning

we were children of the fifties
with warrior fathers of the 8hour shifts
and mothers who stayed home all day,
in the shadows of smokestacks
our world was our neighborhood
in short cuts from porch to schoolyard
our boundaries stretched each year
as street and bicycle acumen grew

days became far sighted
classmates, lost and left
new sides were chosen
as enemies or friends
geography and prejudice
made it simple then,
until kites and strings
no longer flew or bound us
and bicycles became too slow.

Joseph A Farina is a retired lawyer in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. His poems have appeared in Philadelphia Poets, Tower Poetry, The Windsor Review, and Tamaracks: Canadian Poetry for the 21st Century. He has two books of poetry published, The Cancer Chronicles and The Ghosts of Water Street.